THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE  STORY  OF  SAVILLE:  Told  in 
Numbers  by  Julia  Ditto  Young  "A 


DONE   INTO  A  BOOK   AT    THE   ROYCROFT 

PRINTING  SHOP,  EAST  AURORA, 

NEW  YORK,  U.  S.  A. 

MDCCCXCVII 


Copyright 

Julia  Ditto  Young 

1897 


Of  this  edition  but  four  hundred  copies  were  printed 
and  types  then  distributed.  Each  copy  is  signed  and 
numbered  and  this  book  is  number 


759813 


To  be  blind  and  to  be  loved— what  happier  fate  ! 

VICTOR  HUGO. 


TO  THOMAS  HARDY. 

So  dear  hath  grown  thy  rubied  page  to  me, 

When  brooky  wood  or  laughing  mead  I  see, 

Not  of  itself  I  think,  but  first  of  thee, — 

And  sweet  is  it,  thus  in  men's  eyes  to  hold — 

Ah,  moment  proud ! — thy  strong  right  hand  in  mine, 

The  hand  so  lavish  of  poetic  gold, 

So  prodigal  of  honey  and  of  wine. 


SAVILLE 


CROUCHED  like  a  moribund  lion,  wounded, 
alone  in  his  lair, 

Bowed  'neath  unbreakable  fetters,  choked 
with  an  iron  despair, 

Wearily,  heavily  'ware  of  the  clock's  dull  pon 
derous  rune 

Telling  how  hideous  morn  gives  birth  to  mis 
shapen  foul  noon, 

Who  yet  wears  a  loveliness  regal,  a  beauty  tran 
scendent  and  bright, 

Compared  to  her  utterless  offspring,  the  Ethiop 
horror  of  night, 

Kyrle  sat,  scarce  caring  to  keep  account  of  the 
hours  and  the  days, 

As  a  rock-spitted  ship  need  reck  never  more  of 
the  wind  and  its  ways — 

Sat  in  his  isolate  chamber,  lost  in  the  clamant 
strange  town 

Where  he  had  crept  in  the  dark  when  his  sun 
forever  went  down, 

9 


JJforp    Broken  winged  crept  to  be  free  of  the  well-meant 
of  gatriffe  pity  Of  friends 

Rough  as  a  blundering  touch  on  a  burn  that 

solace  intends, 
Free  of  condolences  oily,  felicitous,  falser  than 

hell, 
From  men  who  at  last  might  eclipse  him,  who 

still  rode  safe  on  the  swell, 
Free  of  the  bitter  black  sense — the  shock — that 

no  one  of  them  all 
Vitally  cared  if  he  starved  in  his  garret,  a  rat 

in  the  wall. 


Oh !  if  a  merciful  God,  my  friend,  hath  guer 
doned  and  blest  you  so, 

Hath  out  of  a  million  languid  hearts,  faint  puls 
ing,  feeble  and  slow, 

Singled  one  scarlet  treasure,  that  beats  as  strong 
ly  and  true 

As  the  passionate  powerful  ocean-throb,  for  you 
and  only  you, 

That  hushes  its  lilt  to  a  lullaby,  soothing  you 
while  you  sleep, 

And  bursts  to  blossom  under  your  smile,  and 
bleeds  if  ever  you  weep, 

Trample  it  not,  nor  esteem  it  a  pebble  paltry 

and  cheap, — 
10 


Think  not  twice  in  a  life  to  find  such  a  rose- 

ruby  to  keep  !  of 


Ah  !  they  were  saying  carelessly,  back  in   his 

wonted  place, 
"  Wonder  where  he  has  slipped  to  ?     Poor  devil, 

he's  out  of  the  race  — 
Nothing  remains,  as  the  French  say,  but  drawing 

the  sheet  o'er  the  face,"  — 
And  ever  he  mused  of  his  village  home  and  the 

graves  on  the  churchyard  hill, 
Where  the  only  hearts  that  had  beat  for  him 

were  crumbling,  cruelly  still, 
And  his  useless  eyes  brimmed  over  with  tears, 

and  slowly  his  blood  grew  chill. 


Then  sudden  he  rose  and  flung  off  his  mood,  and 
called  with  a  bitter  laugh 

For  raiment  against  the  javelin  cold,  for  a  guide 
and  his  brand  new  staff, 

And    donning    the  garments   doubtfully,   with 
timid  questioning  touch, 

Now  sharply  chiding  his  helper,  now  thanking 
him  over  much, 

And  groping  his   way  before  him  in  spite  of  the 
lad's  firm  clutch, 

He  reached  the  street  and  onward  dragged,  com 
manding  to  be  led  where 

II 


was  teard  no  more,  and  all  the 
of  Satriffe  world  was  fair, 

For  he  thought  that  mayhap  in  a  purer  air  a 

Gilead-grace  might  be, 

And  God  might  somehow  permit  him  to  breathe 
the  beauty  he  could  not  see. 


When  he  had  forced  his  hesitant  feet  to  traverse 

a  mile  or  so 
Of  street  that  merged  in  a  country  road,  its  ruts 

all  softened  with  snow, 
They  came  to  a  widely  sloping  space  and  lofty 

ancestral  trees 
That  bowed  in  a  stately  welcome  under  a  gentle 

breeze, 
And  the  lad  pushed  open  a  high  arched  gate  and 

boldly  leading  him  through 
Guided  the  man  to  a  rustic  bench  screened  by  a 

sturd}'  yew. 


u  Leave  me  here  for  an  hour,"  said  Kyrle,  and 

when  he  was  quite  alone 
Sat  in  a  hopeless  silence  with  a  face  like  a  carven 

stone, 
Though  once  he  smiled  at  a  thought,  and  the 

smile  more  pitiful  was  than  a  groan, 
For  scarce  was  it  matter  for  mirth,  how  his  mind 

would  circling  rehearse 

12 


The  iterant  rankling  venom  of  an  inquisitorial    £0e 
curse,  of 

A  special  and  general  ban;   and  lie  deemed  it 
better  had  been  for  him 

To  have  undergone  impossible  pangs  and  tor 
tures  fiendish  grim, 

That  one  by  one  they  had  ravished  forth  each 
keen  particular  hair, 

That  redhot  pincers  had  nipped  his   flesh   and 
torn  his  nerve-cells  bare, 

That  a  thousand  needles  had  stung  his  flesh  with 
delicate  devilish  care. 

If  so  they  had  spared  his  eyes, — his  eyes,  that 
were  worth  more  then 

To  the  wretched  groveling  world  than  the  eyes 
of  his  fellow-men, 

For  Oh !  in  this  visionless  later  day  was  any  so 
quick  as  he 

To  snare  and  pinion  the  beauty  that  floats  on 
turret  and  crag  and  tree, 

That  is  as  the  sand  on  the  beaches,  the  blossoms 
of  foam  on  the  sea, — 

Yet  he  had  perceived  not  alone  this  fairness  out 
ward  and  free, 

The  heritage  common  to  all  mankind,  that  chil 
dren  or  clowns  may  prize, 

But  the  deeper  intent,  the  message  occult,  the 
truth  esoteric  that  lies 

13 


Hidden  from  all  but  a  poet's  soul  and  heaven 
of  ^atriffe  anointed  eyes. 


And  now  lie  had  come  to  regret  the  fierce  fanged 
physical  pain 

That  for  long,  long  weeks  had  maddened,  had 
seethed  and  swirled  in  his  brain, 

Whose  pressure  was  past  enduring,  whose  pass 
ing  was  blest  relief, 

Yet  whose  worst  throes  seemed  now  more  kind 
than  this  unbearable  grief, 

This  travail  and  sweat  of  spirit,  where  the  uni 
verse  seemed  to  swim 

In  hatefullest  frantic  chaos,  a  lunatic's  furious 
whim. 

Strange !  that  because  of  a  trifling  loss,  scarce 
more  in  creation's  scheme 

Than  a  gnat  in  a  summer  woodland,  a  leaf  afloat 
on  a  stream, 

Because  two  vials  were  shattered,  God's  purposes 
high  should  seem 

Only  an  idiot  babble  heard  in  a  horrible  dream. 


But  as  he  impotent  girded  and  railed,  and  longed 
to  stifle  his  care 

In  the  dull  narcotic  round  of  his  room,  and  count 
ed  the  winter  air 
14 


And  so  she  passed,  but  again  did  turn,  he  knew 
though  he  could  not  see, 

And  drifted  by  as  antelope-swift  as  downiest 
snow-flakes  be, 

And  laid  with  an  instant  timorous  touch  some 
roses  upon  his  knee, 

And  butterfly  light  and  daintily  still  she  flut 
tered  upon  her  way, 

"  A  rifle  smoke  blown  through  the  woods  for  a 
moment, — a  moment,  but  never  to  stay ! " 


And  he  snatched  the  clustered  loveliness  up,  and 

sudden  it  seemed  a  part 
Of  his  wretched  life,  like  a  dream  of  love  in  an 

old  man's  withered  heart, 
A  rosary  dearer  than  beads  of  olive  were  ever  to 

kneeling  nun, 


Harsh,  unbreathable,  nettle-rough,  suddenly  was    ^^  Sfon> 
he  aware 

Of  a  footstep  light  yet  resolute,  a  beautiful  wom 
an's  tread, 

He  knew  by  the  keen  unwonted  thrill  that  over 
his  senses  sped, 

The  silken  swish,  the  odor  sweet,  and  stricken 
he  bowed  his  head 

Lest  he  be  known  for  a  sightless  clod  and  all  of 
his  sorrow  be  read. 


And  sweet  it  was  to  remember  that  faithfully  soil 
of  jfctriffe  and  sun 

Had  labored  together  in  his  behalf  and  these 
fragrant  globes  had  spun, — 

And  over  his  hand  the  petals  curled,  like  a 
baby's  fingers  weak, 

And  dewily  kissed  like  a  maiden's  lips  his  sal 
low  and  sunken  cheek, 

And  all  that  night  by  his  wakeful  bed  they 
flooded  the  comfortless  spot 

With  spice,  and  he  mixed  again  in  his  mind  the 
crimson  he  had  forgot, 

And  turning  and  tossing  as  needs  he  must,  it  all 
but  soothed  him  to  know 

That  the  utterly  perfect  queenly  things,  beauti 
ful,  all  aglow, 

Were  close  beside  him,  shaking  out  with  each 
waft  of  their  rich  perfume 

A  message  of  pity  and  tenderness  across  the 
midnight  gloom. 


II. 

WELL, — to  a  man  in  a  dungeon  an  infin-    °f  Jfrtriffe 
itesimal  thing 

Looms  large  as  the  fate  of  an  empire  doth 

to  a  fetterless  king, 

And  for  the  first  time  in  aeons  Kyrle  felt  a  sur 
cease  of  pain, 
Casting  the  slough  of  his  anguish  a  blessed  brief 

hour  or  twain, — 
'Twas  something  to  hope  and  to  live  for,  that 

hour  in  the  afternoon, 
To  question  if  fate  would  vouchsafe  him  a  second 

such  velvety  boon, — 
He  would  not  fail  to  keep  tryst, — not  he !     And 

yet — O  heaven  ! — and  yet — 
What?  had  he  sunk  to  this  estate?  to  care  if 

some  selfish  coquette, 
A  pampered  doll,  an  idol  of  clay,  born  only  to 

drive  men  mad, 
Yielded  or  not  to  such  sweet  ruth  as  yesterday 

she  had  ? 


She  came,  with  her  printless  hurrying  feet  step 
ping  so  shamed  and  fast 

Scarce  had  he  guessed  her  near  him  at  all  ere 
she  had  onward  passed, 

And  when  she  had  turned  and  again  approached 
it  seemed  that  she  would  have  gone 

17 


JJforg  Straight  on  unseeing  across  the  stretch  of  wide 
of  Jjjatnffe  snow- sprinkled  lawn, — 

But  she  was  perforce  constrained  to  pause ;  he 
wist  not  that  he  held  up 

A  visage  stamped  with  an  awful  need,  like  a  beg 
gar's  holding  a  cup — 

He  never  knew  that  he  reached  his  hand,  while 
slowly  advanced  the  maid 

And  into  his  fingers  eager  and  worn  a  bunch  of 
violets  laid — 

And  he  tried  to  mutter  a  word  of  thanks,  and  he 
heard  a  quick  low  sob, 

And  he  sank  half  stunned  to  his  seat  again, 
afraid  of  his  heart's  wild  throb, 

And  it  was  over,  all  over  and  past  I  and  now  for 
twenty-four  hours 

He  must  live  like  a  starving  sailor,  on  a  breath 
and  a  knot  of  flowers, 

And  ever  there  rang  in  his  weary  brain,  the  roar 
of  the  city  above, 

These  words  of  a  laurelled  master,  till  he  sick 
ened  with  terror  thereof, 

"  Hath  man  not  evil  enough,  O  Earth,  that  thou 
must  lay  on  him  love  ?  " 


18 


of 

NOT  amid  volleying  thunder,  'mid  smoke- 
wreaths  murkily  dim, 

Not  in  the  fury  of  battle  one  writeth  a  bat 
tle  hymn, 
Nor  chanteth  of  garlanded  Autumn's  purple  and 

golden  store, 
Foison  of  fruit  and  grain  and  nut,  till  harvesting 

days  be  o'er, 
And  not  of  the  glorious  tempest's  rage  while  yet 

the  shuddering  ship 
Is  laboring  through  the  surges  with  headlong 

hurricane  dip, 
And  black  the  skyline  swings  and  swirls  to  a 

tremble  of  silver  foam, 
Not  of  the  creamy  blossomy  death  one  singeth 

till  safe  at  home — 
Yet  oft  a  mariner,  rugged  and  bronzed,  who  joys 

in  the  tales  he  tells 
Of  plumy  palm  trees,  brown  bright  maids,  pink 

corals,  and  filagreed  shells, 
And  perils  of  rocks,  and  wondrous  'scapes  from 

famine  and  fever  hells, 
Will  mark  his  listeners'  starting  eyes,  happy  to 

hold  them  thrall, 
Yet  murmurs,  "  Well,  thank  God  I  am  here,  safe 

sheltered  among  yon  all — 

19 


JJforg    But  Oh !  to  be  back  at  sea,  half  starved,  and 
of  JJfttnffe  drenched  in  a  sudden  squall !  " 

Alas  !  for  any  who  come  to  be  post-graduates  in 

the  art 
Of  subtle  and  sympathetic  search  in  the  deeps 

of  the  human  heart, 
For  Oh  !  they  not  so  ravishing  high,  so  thrilling- 

ly,  tenderly  low 
Could   sing   had  they  not  outlived  the   theme 

some  dozen  of  years  ago — 
Alas  !  for  them  who  clasp  no  hand,  but  an  empty 

shrivelling  glove, 
And  remember  how  sweet  it  was  last  year,  how 

piercingly  sweet  to  love — 
And  alas  for  the  desolate  souls  who  feel  that  the 

rosy  boy  lies  hid, 
Quiver  and  dimples  and  wandering  wings,  under 

a  coffin  lid ! 

But  to  my  story.     Kyrle,  poor  Kyrle,  crept  out 
of  his  smothering  mood, 

The  vile  cocoon  the  worms  had  spun  of  anguish 
and  solitude. 

And  weak  as  an  insect  crawled  about  and  strug 
gled  to  find  a  light 

Of  hope  or  of  faith  or  of  anything  sweet  let  into 

the  fathomless  night. 
20 


All  me !  it  had  been  but  a  struggle  all  through, 

a  moiling  and  rigorous  life  of 

From  the  early  days   on  the  niggard  farm,  the 
petty  ignoble  strife 

'Gainst  narrow  prejudice,  ignorance,  greed,  to 
wrest  for  himself  a  chance 

For  study  and  travel,  for  buffeting  fate  and  con 
quering  circumstance ; 

Then  years  in  the  studios  foreign   and   quaint, 
when  salient  and  eager  his  mind 

Grasped  and  garnered  all  manner  of  truths — ex 
cept  that  he  had  not  dined  ; 

But  that's   a  detail,  a  mere  trifle — the  worship 
ping  student  will  find 

Diviner  delight,  a  more  rapturous  joy  in  an  in 
tellectual  stride, 

A  tint,  or  a  chord,  or  a  line  in  an  ode,  than  in 
aught  under  heaven  beside  ; 

And  then  the  homecoming,  the  hopeful  return  to 
the  generous  land  of  his  birth, 

The  vehement  passion  for  art,  the  desire  to  show 
what  he  was  worth, 

Kaleidoscope  pageants  of  fancies   circling  and 
swift  in  his  thought, 

Tissues  of  gossamer  golden  freaked,  with  pearls 
and  emeralds  wrought, 

A  bright  panoramic  succession,  like  raindrops 
of  April  clear, 

21 


Thicker  than  jewels  of  August  dew,  so  that  his 
of  ^atriffe  only  fear 

Was  that  the  phantom  embryos,  tiny  as  stars  of 

snow, 
Might  melt  and  slip  away  into  naught,  and  he 

never  see  them  go — 
And   often   he  rose  in  the   dead   of  night  and 

dashed  off  a  virile  sketch 
To  lull  into   quiet  some  clamoring  shape  that 

had  kept  his  mind  at  a  stretch ; 
Then     followed     his     masterpiece,     "  Rupert's 

Trust," — God!  how  he  sweated  and  slaved, 
Denying  his  body  forgotten  the   nurture   and 

slumber  it  craved ; 
Ah  I  that  was  well  worthy  the  doing,  worthy  a 

continent's  praise — 
Men  for  a   slighter  achievement  than  this  had 

been  crowned  with  eternal  bays — 
He  had  dropped  his  palette  and  brushes,  had 

sent  his  soul  in  the  gaze 
He  bent  on  his  picture  completed,   his  beautiful 

darling, — had  smiled 
To  think  that  his  wedlock  devoted  had  bloomed 

in  an  exquisite  child, — 

What !  could  it  be  that  men  cherished  their  chil 
dren  born  but  of  the  flesh 
As  he  cherished  this  holier  offspring  snared  in 

a  mystical  mesh, 

22 


The  child  of  himself  and  of  Love, — deep  love 

for  his  race  and  his  art,  of 

And  for  whatsoever  of  good  and  pure  in  this  our 
being  hath  part, — 

And  then,  while  he  gazed  exalted  and  rapt,  per 
ceiving  the  glory-rays 

Stream  meteor-like  from  the  picture  and  merge 
in  an  opaline  haze, 

Sudden  the  haze  was  a  thunder-cloud,  all  gashed 
and  fretted  with  fire, 

And  the  wind  shrieked  loud  through  his  cham 
ber,  bellowing  higher  and  higher, 

And  a  knell  as  of  death  everlasting  was  knolled 
from  a  neighboring  spire. 


And  the  cloud  rolled  sulphurous  into  his  brain, 
and  the  fire  gnawed  into  his  eyes, 

And  the  tigerish  wind  whirled  round  and  round, 
spiralling  dervish-wise^ 

And  tore  into  tatters  the  visual  nerve,  in  its  ter 
rible  fiery  grind, — 

And  the  steeple  carillon  lost  its  chime  and  tolled 
but  the  one  word,  "  Blind !  " 


Well,  it  had  happened  ages  ago,  in  the  days  that 

preceeded  the  flood, 
So  it  seemed  to  Kyrle,  with  his  strong  hand  lax 

and  sluggish  his  galloping  blood, 

23 


And  over  and  over  he  cursed  his  fate  and  bitterly 
of  |&triffe  marvelled  to  find 

What  a  wretched  contemptible  thing  is  a  man, 
whether  death-dumb  and  resigned, 

Ox-like  patient,  stolidly  mute,  he  draggeth  his 
weariful  load, 

Or  furious  snarls  at  the  bloody  lash  and  passion 
ate  writhes  at  the  goad, — 

Bah  !  the  unstable  frail  spirit,  more  weak  than 
the  wing  of  a  dove 

To  soar  and  attain  the  empyreal  heights, — strong 
only  to  suffer  and  love  1 


Love, — to  my  story  of  love  again,  the  wonderful 

story  we  told 
Or  heard  in  the  dim  sweet  cycles  afar  in  the  Age 

of  Gold, 
When  the  pendulum  pulse  in   the  soft  young 

cheek  swings  tremulous  to  and  fro 
From  the  pearly  pallor  of  cherry  blooms  to  the 

rose's  crimson  glow, 
When  a  few  faint  syllables,  English-plain,  are 

richer  than  wisdom's  years, 
And  one  dear  voice  holds  deeper  tones  than  the 

music  of  all  the  spheres. 


Scarce  could  one  call  it  an  interview  between 

these  shadowy  folk, 
24 


Whereof  the  one  saw  the  other  not  and  neither 

the  silence  broke,  of  |Jamffe 

But  at  the  third  strange  meeting-time,  Kyrle 
gathered  courage  and  spoke, 

For  e'en  as  she  laid  her  tribute  down  and  would 
have  fled  hurrying  by, 

He  caught  her  hand  in  a  deathful  grip,  unheed 
ing  her  startled  cry, 

Too  wrapped  in  his  infinite  harrowing  need,  too 
wholly  absorbed  to  feel 

The  crusted  wealth  of  her  priceless  rings,  the 
elegant  sleeve  of  seal, 

And  he  poured  out  his  thanks  in  a  sudden  rush 
as  a  brook  doth  in  March  overswell, 

Entreating  that  she  who  had  been  but  a  fragrance 
should  now  be  a  voice  as  well. 


Long  she  stood  hesitant,  statue-still,  her  lilies 

and  fingers  withdrawn, 
And  at  last  he  sighed  in  a  shuddering  breath, 

deeming  she  must  have  gone, 
But  then  she  answered  and  all  the  peace  and 

healing  and  balm  that  dwell 
In  a  country  lane  on  a  Sabbath  morn,  blest  by  a 

distant  bell, 
Hallowed  her  voice,  and  the  words  thereof  were 

sweeter  than  asphodel, 

25 


JJforg    For  pity>  ^  P^ty  sne  ^e^>  was  veiled  under  a 
of  ^atriffe  sprightly  essay 

To  twist  a  shimmering  strand  of  gold  into  the 
hodden  gray. 

"Alas,  poor  knight !  thou  art  lorn  and  lost,  and 
cast  forever  away 

In  this  enchanted  and  fearsome  land,  where 
witches  and  ogres  hold  sway, — 

Thou  hast  suffered  the  ban  of  my  sister  Fate  ; 
but  I  am  a  tenderer  fay, 

And  so  that  thou  servest  me  early  and  late,  own 
ing  no  queen  beside, 

Never  presuming  to  question  my  will,  loyal  what 
ever  betide, 

I  dare  avouch  thou  again  shalt  feel  that  warmly 
the  sun  doth  shine, 

Thou  shalt  once  more  breathe  Heliconian  air, 
and  drink  of  Falernian  wine, 

And  haply  at  last  the  scales  shall  fall  fiom  those 
dark  sad  eyes  of  thine  1  " 


Then  pressing  the  lilies  close  into  his  hand, 
while  Kyrle  stood  blockish  and  still, 

She  murmured  "  Farewell,  farewell,  poor  knight! 
Remember  the  Fairy  Saville !  " 


26 


IV. 

TO  WOMEN  alone  doth  love,  bright  love,    °f 
come  as  a  perfect  joy, 

A  lily  uncankered,  pure  virgin  gold,  flaw 
less  and  free  from  alloy, — 

Faithfully,  gladly  they  serve,  who  win,  for  tend 
ing  the  boy  god's  flame, 
Guerdon  of  agonized  travail  and  death  and  often 

a  pilloried  shame, — 
They,  sweet  souls,  do  rapturous  leap  at  the  sound 

of  Love's  entering, 

Ask  not  where  he  has  hidden  his  lash,  but  wor 
ship  and  crown  him  king. 


Men,  it  may  be,  have  a  loftier  look,  a  glimpse  of 

the  anguish  and  tears, 
And  see  in  the  baby's  bassinette   the  corpse  of 

seventy  years, 
The  rift  that  must  come  in  the  lute  at  last,  the 

worm  that  works  in  the  bud, — 
However  it  be,  I  only  know  their  love  is  a  vice 

in  the  blood, 
A  season   of  poignant  tormenting,  of  pleasure 

elusive  and  vague, 
A  maelstrom  engulfing,  to  be  forever  dreaded 

and  shunned  like  the  plague, — 
To  men,  pink  palpitant  Eros  seems  a  skeleton 

earthily  gaunt, 

27 


JJforp    And  their  kindest  word  for  the  fluttering  shape 
of  JJatriffe  is  "  Horrible  monster,  avaunt !  " 


But  when  into  Kyrle's  existence  blank,  arid  as 

African  sands, 
Into  the  barrenness  marred  and  vexed  by  alien 

tongues  and  hands, 
An  angel's  voice  rang  heavenly  high,  and  a  star 

in  his  pathway  fell, 
Welcomer  'twas  to  the  lonely  man  than  water  in 

nethermost  hell. 
He  troubled  no  more  for  his  future  weal  than 

violets  do  in  May, 
For  steadily,  softly  gleamed  the  star  ;  sufficient 

from  day  to  day 
It  was  to  hearken  and  ponder  the  words  the 

Fairy  Saville  would  say, 
Though  ever  he  questioned  his  dubious  heart, 

"  Can  this  great  miracle  be, — 
Does   this   magnificent   passion-flower  blossom 

alone  for  me  ? 
Or  hath  she  served  an  apprenticeship  and  gilded 

her  fancy's  pen 
Coldly  dipping  it,  artisan-wise,  in  the  blood  of  a 

score  of  men  ?  " — 
But  soon  these   petty   misgivings   fled, — what 

mattered  it  if  she  had  won 
28 


Her  bountiful  largess  of  healing  under  a  foster- 

ing  sun,  of 

Or  rooted  on  some  bleak  headland,  torn  by  the 
mistral  harsh, 

Or  midst  of  the  drooping  cypresses  and  beaded 
moss  of  a  marsh, — 

For  she  spoke  not  alone  with  the  cold  precision 
and  icy  glitter  of  thought, 

That  of  itself  no  poetry  forms,  but  all  of  her 
speech  was  wrought 

With  fluctuant  gleams  of  the  light  divine  that 
never  on  sea  or  land 

Doth  shine,  but  only  in  vestal  hearts  that  trem 
ble  and  understand, 

And  whether  she  struck  with  a  touch  assured 
the  silver  strings  of  her  lyre, 

Till  the  whole  wood  rang  to  a  rhapsody  as  of  a 
seraph  choir, 

Or  whether  she  wailed  in  a  minor  key,  sad  as 
the  coo  of  a  dove, 

Briny   with    tears   as  the  ocean  foam,  a  bitter 
sweet  story  of  love, 

Or  whether  elegiac,  organ-deep,  she  chanted  a 
dirge-refrain, 

Or  of  rivulets  warbled  and  resinous  buds  and 
burgeon  of  meadow  and  plain, 

Eloquent  utterance,  gracile  as  palms,  poppies  of 
fire  and  of  dew, 

29 


of  ^atriffe 


Bloomed  at  his  need  like  the  manna  of  old,  and 

grateful  he  listened  and  knew 
That  God,  who  forbade  him  to  read  a  poem,  was 

letting  him  live  one  through, 
And  his  wing-clipt  faith  grew  whole  once  more, 

spurning  its  shackles  and  bars, 
And  he  soared  on  pinions  steady  and  strong  to 

the  gracious  accessible  stars, 
And  man  was  honest  and  woman  was  true  and 

the  Infinite  God  was  kind, 
And  the  world  was  a  fair  pure  world  again,  and 

only  his  eyes  were  blind, 
And  he  bowed  his  head  to  the  All-wise  Will, 

embracing  the  doom  assigned. 


V>  . 

WEEK  after  week  slipped  billowy  by  into    Of  Jjatriffe 
tlie  gulfy  past, 
And  the  silvery  beryl  of  each  day's  wave 

broke  at  Kyrle's  feet  and  upcast 
Flotsam  of  Indian  broideries,  spices,  and  pearls 

of  Ceylon, 
Sandalwood  Araby  sweet,  and  myrrh,  and  fagots 

of  cinnamon, 

And  strewing  the  sterile  waste  beach  of  his  life 
became  as  a  godsend  thereon. 


The  timid  grace  of  the  lady  birch,  the  gnarls  of 

the  oak,  she  told, 
How  the  warrior  pines  stood  stark  against  the 

sunset's  daffodil  gold, 
And  the  sinuous  slopes  of  the  distant  hills  were 

but  as  a  banner  unscrolled, 
Tawny  and  russet  and  purple  twined,  dotted  with 

orbs  of  jet 
Where  a  sturdy  thorn   or  a  lichened  rock  was 

into  the  fabric  set, 
And  often  she  pictured  a  mother  and  babes,  a 

tranquil  domestic  scene 
Behind  the  rubious  cordial  glow  of  a  casement's 

coppery  sheen, 

And   once   when   the   sky  occidental  was  paly 
translucentest  green, 


Like  apple-tree  buds  ere  the  mid-May's  kiss 
of  |§airifft  quickens  them,  tender  and  keen, 

She  told  how  a  trio  of  cloudy  shapes,  dripping 
with  blood  and  wine, 

Drifted  o'er  the  horizon's  rim,  lurid  as  almandine, 

Huddled  and  hunched  and  wizened,  like  the  sis 
ters  three  in  Macbeth, 

And  one  was  Failure  and  one  was  Fear,  and  one 
was  a  Prayer  for  death, — 

But  an  airy  knight  pricked  over  the  plain  and 
he  vanquished  them  all  at  a  breath, 

And  the  conqueror's  colors  were  caught  and 
tossed,  and  up  to  the  zenith  rolled, 

And  a  legion  sang  of  his  victory  like  the  morn 
ing  stars  of  old. 


And  once  she  came  through  a  shuddering  storm, 

braving  the  eddying  whirl 
Of  the  snow-grains   sown  by  a  prodigal  hand, 

and  walked  for  a  space  with  Kyrle, 
And  clung  to  his  arm,  half  womanly  guide,  and 

half  but  a  frivolous  girl, 
And  said  'twas  as  if  they  were  walking  alone, 

they  two,  in  a  vast  white  pearl, 
Where  radiant  nacre-gleams  of  pink  traversed 

the  edelweiss  hue, 
But  never  a  satyr's  hoof   was   heard  nor  an 

Oread's  laugh  rang  through, 
32 


And  there  lurked  no  hint  of  the  forestal  green 
nor  yet  of  the  limitless  blue. 


And   then   as   they  battled   against   the  wind, 

sauntering  to  and  fro, 
She  preached  him  a  little  sermon  she  had  studied 

that  day  in  Thoreau, 
Her  text,  the  chariot  wheels  of  the  storm,  the 

six-spoked  crystals  of  snow, 
Those  faceted  glorious  spangles,  the  sweepings 

of  heaven's  floor, 
Feathery   petaled   hexagonal   flowers,   diamond 

dusted  o'er, — 
Why,  we  are  sprent  with  gems !  they  fall  in  a 

wavering  thistledown  blur, 
In   the   gallery  of  the  meadow  mouse,  on  the 

restless  squirrel's  fur, 
The   schoolboy  crushes   them   into  a  ball,  the 

woodman  follows  his  sled 
Through  the  wreck  of  a  myriad  fragile  stars, 

strange  as  the  stars  o'erhead, — 
And  Oh  I  'twere  a  blasphemy  to  declare  by  some 

cold  narrowing  word 
Mechanical  action  got  them :  Divinity  must  have 

stirred 
In  the  germ  pellucid  and  gelid,  and  so  have  they 

come  to  be 

33 


Fair  fruit  of  enthusiasm,  the   children   of  ec- 
of  JJatritfe  stasy, — 

And  mother  nature  not  yet  had  lost  her  pristine 

vigor  and  force, 
Still  was  the  law  supreme  at  work,  the  sun  still 

true  in  his  course, 
And  God  still  paused  to  watch  over  His  earth, 

still  fashioned  with  cunningest  art 
The  baby  flakes  of  the  silver  snow — and  why 

should  a  man  lose  heart  ? 


34 


VI. 

BUT  at  last  came  a  day  when  she  failed  to    <* 
come,  when  the  reed  bent  rottenly  down, 
And  he  sat  in  a  cruel  impatience,  his  face 

deformed  by  a  frown, 
And  he  listened  in  vain  for  the  crystalline  tinkle 

of  feet  through  the  crepitant  grass, 
The  delicate  laugh  of  dismay  at  a  drift  or  haply 

a  tiny  crevasse, — 
He  waited  half  sick  of  a  hope  deferred,  till  his 

marrow  was  turned  to  ice, 
And  the  orange  and  garnet  chilled  out  of  the 

sky,  and  the  lad  had  come  for  him  thrice, 
And  then  he  arose  and  doggedly  trudged  to  his 

poor  pain-tenanted  room, 

That  crawled  as  with  slimiest  horrors  through 
out  the  reticulate  gloom, 
And  he  shrank  from  shutting  himself  alone  into 

that  living  tomb. 

And  he  had  no  lilies  at  all  that  night,  no  lan 
guorous  lullings  of  spice, 

No  hope  of  remote  reparation,  no  visions  to  lure 
and  entice, 

Naught  but  the  old,  old  Tantalus-mood,  that  had 
gathered  new  malice  and  gall 

From  disuse,  as  a  robe  gathers  mildew  and  moth, 
hanging  forgot  on  the  wall, 

35 


And  a  pain  rapacious  surged  over  his  soul  like 

a  flood  or  a  pestilent  wind, 

Or   octopus-like   sucked  into  his  heart,  shark- 
toothed  and  poisonous-finned, 
And  he  summoned  the  strength  of  his  nature  in 

its  outraged  trust  to  arise 
And  help  him  to  hate  himself  and  this  woman, 

to  utterly  loathe  and  despise 
Her  who  had  made  him  a  pastime,  bridging  the 

winter  across 

With  a  masque,  a  foolery  petty  and  vain,  amus 
ing  herself  with  his  loss, — 
God !  it  had  been  but  an  insult  throughout,  her 

'havior  so  sisterly  free, — 
She  scarce  had  esteemed  him  a  man  at  all, — why, 

then,  forsooth  1  should  she  be 
Distantly  coy  with  a  clod,  reserved  as  a  maid  is 

alway 
With  a  man  ?    She  had  seen  at  a  glance  that  no 

least  possibility  lay 
Of  love  'twixt  herself  and  a  creature  ignoble,  all 

of  whose  manlihood 
The  chief  enchanter  had  Merlin-wise  sunk  in  a 

pathless  wood, 
And  so  she  had  pitied  him  for  a  season,  but  now 

she  had  wearied  and  sped 
To  a  southern  clime  where  the  grapes  were  gold 

and  the  pomegranates  lusciously  red. 


But  the  Avon  Swan  sang  silvery  clear  "  All  of 
fice  infirmity  still 

Neglects,"  and  his  heart  waxed  weak  and  wailed 
"  Perhaps  she  is  fevered  and  ill, — 

Perhaps  she  is  dying — O  God,  protect  Thy 
purest,  Thy  peerless  Saville  1 " 


Yet  the  foul  faint  doubt  he  had  trampled  at  first 
sprang  weedlike  over  again, — 

She  was  but  a  woman  and  therefore  false, — she 
smiled  on  a  hundred  men, — 

And  he  thought  how  she  clung  to  his  arm  in  the 
snow  and  he  wished  he  had  killed  her  then! 


37 


VII. 
next  day  camgj  and  with  it  gaville 

too  breathless  and  happy  to  speak, 
And  lie  felt  the  vibrant  blood  in  her  hand, 

and  he  guessed  it  was  red  in  her  cheek, 
And  he  said  that  he  dared  not  reproach  her — it 

was  not  his  right — and  then  poured 
Upon  her  head  meek  and  devoted  such  vials  of 

wrath  as  are  stored 
In  a  thunderbolt,  wild  over  leaping  the  bounds 

that  convention  hath  set, 
And  Saville  stood  exultant  and  smiling  to  see 

how  a  man  could  forget 
All  hindrances  puny,  external,  and  show  forth 

the  soul  of  him  yet. 


But  she  stifled  her  smiling  and  gently  spoke, 
and  there  was  a  subtle  change 

In  her  tone  and  manner,  a  humbleness,  sub 
servient,  flattering,  strange, 

As  when  a  poor  peasant,  gambolling  rude,  freely 
will  shout  and  sing 

For  a  chance  companion,  but  soon  is  hushed, 
learning  he  rides  with  The  King  I 


"  I  am  sorry — yet  glad — but  sorry  the  most  I  I 

never,  I  think,  should  have  dared 
38 


To  believe  that  my  coming  was  aught  to  you, — 

I  deemed  that  you  would  not  have  cared, —     of  JJeuriffe 
I  might  have  ribboned  a  note  to  the  bench, — 

but  alas  !  you  could  not  read, — 
And  did  you  really  linger  till  dark  ?  and  did  you 

miss  me  indeed  ? 
But  I — I  was  threading  the  tangled  maze  of  the 

city's  ravenous  whirl, 
And  I  gazed  for  an  hour  upon  '  Rupert's  Trust,' 

— and  you,  O  friend  I  you  are  Kyrle !  " 


He  mused,  how  small  is  the  woman  soul,  how 
timid  and  trustless  and  frail, 

Curious  ever  of  pedigree  and  trivial  confirming 
detail, 

While  he  had  not  even  requested  her  name,  con 
tented  as  yet  but  to  dream 

Of  her  as  a  dim  mist-maiden,  a  goddess,  gem- 
girdled,  supreme, — 

But  it  passed,  this  scornfulness  fleeting,  and  the 
air  seemed  to  dimple  and  dirl 

Eolian-tender,  mandolin-sweet,  at  the  magical 
words,  "  You  are  Kyrle," 

Simple,  sufficient,  as  if  she  had  said  in  a  homag- 
ing,  honeyfraught  tone, 

'*  You  are  Caesar, — unmastered,  unrivalled, — our 
planet  doth  own 

39 


No  man  for  your  fellow, — Enough !     You  are 
even  so  Kyrle  and  alone  !  " 


Ah,  well !  he  had  hoped  that  the  world  one  day 
would  thus  acknowledge  his  power, 

Would  wreath   his   temples   with   immortelles, 
would  cast  at  his  feet  the  dower 

That  genius   merits  and  sometimes  wins ;  but 
alas !  not  e'en  for  an  hour 

Had  he  been  the  idol ;  the  waxen  bud  had  black 
ened  and  failed  of  a  flower. 

And  now  he  inquired  as  a  father  might  of  a  dis 
tant  and  darling  child 

Of  the  veriest  trifles ;  he  knew  how  hard  they 
were  to  be  reconciled, 

The  needs  of  a  picture  like  "  Rupert's  Trust," 
and  the  mirk  of  a  dusty  shop, — 

Was  it  decently  hung  ?  did  the  light  fall  true 
from  a  shaded  jet  at  the  top  ? 

And  Oh  I  was  it  verily  great  ?  did  it  hold  the 
vital,  the  God-given  spark 

That  had  been  his  latest  glimpse  upon  earth,  that 
still  struck  white  through  the  dark  ? 

Was  the  flame  still  lambently  blazing  and  clear, 
the  gold  from  the  dross  to  refine, 

Of  force  to  pierce  and  to  purify  men,  and  change 

then  from  panthers  and  swine  ? 
40 


Could  a  man  step  out  of  his  daily  round  and  that    £0e 

passionate  picture  scan,  of  J 

And  not  go  forth  to  the  greed  and  the  grind  a 

cleaner  and  better  man  ? 
Had  she  heard  as  she  gazed  the  Spirits  of  Good 

singing  their  deathless  song, 
Had  she  felt  it  were  better  to  starve  and  rot  than 

swerve  to  the  smallest  wrong  ? 


But  Saville  was  mute ;  it  seemed  for  a  space  as 

if  she  scarce  could  have  heard, 
She  who  was  ever  so  prompt  to  utter  a  sparkling 

felicitous  word, 
And  he  guessed  she  was  weeping,  and  soon  she 

breathed  in  a  tear-veiled  tremulous  tone, 
"  I  only  prayed :  O  God  I    Give  back  his  vision 

and  take  my  own  I  " 


And  Kyrle  laughed  out,  'twas  so  sweet  to  win 

compassion  divine  as  this, 
Laughed  like  a  boy,  and  reached  his  arms  over 

the  viewless  abyss, 
And  the  black  was  cleft  by  a  lightning  stroke 

and  their  souls  were  fused  in  a  kiss. 


VIII. 

of  JJatnffe        A    ND  as  ever,  the  kiss  to  the  maiden's  lips 
^/-\     came  as  a  fleckless  delight, 

As  a  hummingbird  glad  in  the  amber  noon 

recks  never  of  tempest-torn  night, 
But  the  man  thrilled  solemnly  to  the  thought 

that  whether  for  good  or  for  ill 
He  had  mixed  his  life  with  another  life  and  was 

bound  as  with  steel  to  Saville, 
And  he  raged  at  himself  for  an  image  of  clay 

that  senseless  and  selfish  had  snared 
The  love  of  a   creature  angelic,  to  whom   he 

should  never  have  dared 
Lift  even  a  worshiping  thought,  since  his  foiled 

adoration  was  but 

As  a  rayless  rare  jewel,  unmined,  unprized,  un 
der  a  mountain  shut. 


Men   take   for   granted  the  ferventest  love ;   it 

seemeth  them  utterly  meet 
That  woman  should  bow  to  them  as  to  a  god  and 

lay  at  their  deity's  feet 
Frankincense,  honeycomb,  turquois  and   pearl, 

and  all  things  precious  and  sweet, — 
But  Kyrle,  poor  Kyrle,  was  humble  enough,  and 

he  honestly  questioned  the  maid 
How  she  had  formed  so  wretched  a  choice, — how 

had  her  fancy  strayed 
42 


Past  willowy  wands  and  stalwart  rods  to  the 

crookedest  staff  in  the  glade  ?  of 

Her  heart  had  bled  for  him,  blind  and  banned, 
as  any  true  woman's  had  done, — 

He  flung  back  her  pity, — a  goodly  gift,  mayhap; 
but  he  would  have  none. 


Pity  ?  no, — she  was  orphaned  and  sad ;  she  dwelt 

in  the  hall  of  L/Estrange, 
A  mere  companion  and  hanger  on,  forbidden  to 

roam  and  to  range 
Past  the  walls  of  the  park,  lest  her  mistress  should 

call,  for  she  was  capricious  and  strange, 
And  bitter  as  aloes  her  bread  to  Saville,  who 

joyed  as  a  bird  to  exchange 
Her  gilded  dull  cage  for  a  wider  bourne,  her 

chrysalis  wings  to  unfurl 
In  the  ether  of  freedom  and  float  for  an  hour  in 

blessed  communion  with  Kyrle. 


"  Ah  sweet !  for  a  rainbow  hour  'twere  well ;  but 
now  you  have  tangled  your  life 

With  a  pariah's,  unto  whom  God  denies  the 
having  of  home  or  of  wife." 


"But  dearest!  that  is  the  blazing  star  in  this 
galaxy-bond  of  ours, 

43 


JJforp  The  regnant  rose  in  a  garland  twined  of  sweet 
of  JJatriffe  yet  commoner  flowers ! 

Thank  God  that  the  thought  of  marriage  is  as 
far  as  the  thought  of  death, — 

Marriage  I  where  poor  little  weary  Love,  drab 
bled  and  out  of  breath, 

Bravely  struggles  'gainst  pitiful  odds,  till  his 
cruel  coarse-spirited  foes 

Break  and  batter  the  irised  wings  and  sneer  at 
his  dying  throes, 

And  the  dance  and  jest  go  rioting  on,  and  none 
of  his  murdering  knows  !  " 


"  Ah,  well,  I  would  risk  it !  but  whether  Saville, 

for  us  it  could  happen  so, — 
Perish  the  thought !  'tis  a  sacrilege, — but  never, 

dear  love,  shall  we  know. 
I  am  as  a  bee  untimely  crushed  ere  he  unloadeth 

his  sweets, 
Dead  to  accomplishment,  effort  and  joy,  whose 

heart  still  cruelly  beats, 
Ardent,  ambitious,  and  pulsing  strong  with  fiery 

tropical  heats, — 
God  I  how  I  worship  my  art  divine,  my  heavenly 

art,  Saville,-*- 
That  I  were  rotting  a  grain  a  day,  yet  able  to 

serve  her  still ! " 
44 


Then  Saville  perceived  what  is  common  to  all 

who  are  linked  with  disciples  of  art,  of  Jjjatriffe 

That  she  stood  without  the  holy  of  holies,  an 
alien,  a  stranger,  apart, 

But  she  passed  the  portal  and  coined  a  word  to 
comfort  the  desolate  heart. 


"  Hearken,  my  dearest  1     You  murmur  because 

you  fancy  you  have  not  done 
Your  stent  to  the  utmost,  have  painted  but  one 

great  picture, — but  one ! 
You  should  rather  thank  God  from  a  grateful 

heart  you  were  gifted  to  do  so  much, 
For  manifold  millions  of  men  go  by,  nor  help 

the  world  by  a  touch  ; 
They  loiter  like  lizards  half  frozen  and  maimed 

,     over  the  face  of  the  rock, 
And  they  front  their  kind  with  no  message  more 

true  than  a  moan  or  a  gibbering  mock, — 
But  you  I  you  are  like  to  God  in  this,  that  out 

of  your  innermost  thought 
You  have  created  and  called  to  life  a  thing  with 

deep  potencies  fraught, 
And  the  work  shall  endure,  inspiring  and  grand, 

when  the  worker  hath  fallen  to  dust, 
And  my  soul  hath  a  loftier  stature  today  for 

looking  on  *  Rupert's  Trust  1 ' " 

45 


JJforg 
of  JJatnffe 


And  he  laughed  once  more.  "Ah  sweet,  my  sweet! 

hath  a  nightingale  lodged  in  thy  breast, 
That  thou  singest  a  strain  more  rapture-panged 

than  ever  a  siren  possessed  ? 
Yes,  I  have  achieved  —  but  ah  1  what  I  meant  — 

yet  what  are  the  claims  of  my  art, 
What  joy  had  I  won  had  I  labored  on  like  the 

emperor's  prize  of  thine  heart, 
That  nest  whence  the  doves  fly  gauzily  forth 

and  the  air  with  sweet  flutterings  fill,  — 
My  darling,  my  darling  !      Yes,  God  is  above, 

and  He  loves  me  and  sends  me  Saville  !  " 


O  FRIEND !  if  a  brother,  struggling  and   of 
faint,  cries  out  for  thy  helping  hand, 
And  begs  for  a  draught  of  water  or  wine  in 

a  barren  and  fountainless  land, — 
If  a  human  soul  in  a  need  extreme  where  the 

weltering  surges  roll 
Entreats  for  a  token  of  sympathy,  the  touch  of 

a  stancher  soul, 
Hasten,  O  hasten  to  give  of  thy  strength !  let 

not  the  poor  sufferer  wait, 

For  the  sand  burns  white  and  the  waves  leap 
fierce,  and  to-morrow  it  may  be  too  late, — 
Thou  shalt  haply  see  in  the  morning  sun  an 
outworn  shell  at  thy  gate ! 


Saville  had  responded  to  Kyrle's  wild  prayer, 
and  so  was  permitted  to  save 

His  wounded  faith  and  his  breaking  heart  from 
the  dusty  dark  of  the  grave, 

And  the  days  like  white- winged  birds  wheeled 
by,  and  nearer  and  nearer  they  grew, 

And  each  was  a  light  in  the  other's  life,  tinging 
its  grayness  through 

With  a  cordial  warmth,  as  in  winter  wolds  ver 
milion  barberries  do, — 

Ah  me  I  'tis  a  world  of  shadows  we  walk  in,  and 
happy  is  he  who  can  cling 

47 


In  the  midst  of  the  vacillant  spectres  secure  to 
of  JJatriffe  one  real  true  thing. 

And  April  arrived  and  the  sward  to  the  foot  was 
spongily  tender  and  wet, 

And  the  ice-bound  brooks  broke  loose  and  ran 
singing  a  canzonet, 

And  coral  the  maple-buds  shone  overhead,  and 
mayweed  and  thistles  and  dill 

Were  springing  as  if  but  to  honor  and  please 
sweet  arbutus-laden  Saville, 

And  Kyrle  stood  erect  and  majestic,  awaiting 
her,  seeming  again 

Sovereign  and  lord  of  his  turbulent  fate,  self- 
poised  and  a  man  among  men. 


He  had  something  to  tell  her — yet  where  was  the 

need  ?  Her  knowledge  preceded  his  own — 
She  must  have  incited  her  lady  L'Bstrange,  a 

power  behind  the  throne, — 
The  picture  was  sold  to  that  lady, — no  more 

should  it  languish  unseen, 
But  was  called  to  its  rightful  station,  the  home 

of  a  social  queen, 
And  the  lady  had  paid  a  liberal  price,  almost  a 

fabulous  sum. 
A  monarch's  fee,  and  'twas  through  Saville  that 

this  fortunate  chance  had  come, 


And  so  she  had  earned  a  commission, — she  must    £0e 

not  be  over  nice, —  of  J&unffe 

She  was  poorer  than  he  himself  was,  and  here 

was  the  half  of  the  price, — 
He  fathomed  the  dullness  abhorred  of  her  daily 

routine  at  the  Hall, 
There  were  nettles  'mid  silkiest  cushions,  and 

the  bread  was  besprinkled  with  gall, — 
And  here  was  the  money,  her  earnings,  not  his ; 

she  must  take  it  and  hasten  away 
To  the  rose-misted  mountains  or  chrysoprase  sea, 

and  rest  for  a  long  holiday. 


One  word  incoherent  and  sudden  she  spoke  in  a 

doubting  reproachful  tone, 
Then  struggled  for  dignity  all  too  late,  for  the 

word  had  been  simply  "  Alone  ?  " 


Full  often  the  mind,  when  fate's  dense   cloud 
suddenly  ominous  lowers, 

Or  sparkles  with  gold  or  crimson,  charged  by 
kindlier  powers, 

Works  in  the  groove  a  master  cut,  in  deeper  ex 
pressions  than  ours, 

And  Kyrle  but  mused  how  the  knight  of  old 
mourned  of  his  fateful  sin 

49 


That  he  dare  not  pluck  it  forth  of  his  heart, 
of  JJatnffe  since  all  that  was  lovely  therein 

Was  tendrilled  and  knotted  with  what  was  evil 

in  union  so  vital  and  strong 
That  which  was  tainted  and  which  was  pure  he 

wist  not,  nor  right  from  wrong. 


"  Now  surely  this  were  a  sin,"  mused  Kyrle,  "or 
a  cowardice,  which  is  worse, — 

A  month  ago  I  had  spurned  the  thought  away 
from  me  with  a  curse. 

What  should  such  fellows  as  I  do,"  forsooth? 
and  Hamlet  as  good  as  his  word, 

Weak,  irresolute,  yet  put  by  the  plea  of  tempta 
tion  unheard, — 

Yes, — and  thanks  to  his  reasoning  so  unim- 
peachably  sound, 

To  this  Alpine  glimmer  of  purpose  high  in  his 
brain's  fantastical  round, 

His  poor,  poor  love  with  her  pansied  hands  and 
her  daisied  tresses  lay  drowned  1 


And  Oh !  he  was  weary  of  prudence,  that  frigid 

fanatical  nun, — 
In  her  hateful  name  what  straits  he  had  seen, 

what  tasks  superhuman  had  done, 
50 


He  had  chidden  his  lips  for  smiling,  forbidden    £0e 
his  blood  to  run, —  of 

And  now  at  the  thought  of  breaking  her  bond, 
Kyrle's  heart,  exuberant,  wild, 

Leapt  as  a  cataract  plunges  o'er  masses  of  granite 
up-piled, — 

Sweet  is  a  reckless  beat  in  a  pulse  long  glacier- 
gentle  and  mild ! 


Again  did  a  master's  words  come  back  in  rippling 

mellifluous  flow, 
"  Whither,  O  whither,  my  love,  shall  we  flee  for 

a  sweet  little  summer  or  so  ?  " 
And  he  said,  "  The  thorn-girded  Princess  arose 

and  followed  her  lover, — but  no ! 
You  are  hedged  with  a  thousand  conventional 

briers,  Saville,  and  you  dare  not  go, — 
It  is  but  a  dream  that  we  twain  might  wed  and 

sweep  in  a  swallow-like  flight 
Away  for  a  roseate  triple-mooned  day,  and  then 

ere  autumnal  sad  night 
Slip  back  to  our  niches  appointed  and  strait, 

and  arm  for  the  winter's  fight, 
Yours,  the  hushing  of  peevish  complaints,  the 

filling  of  futile  demands, 
Mine,  the  patiently  facing  the  dark  and  chafing 

the  listless  hands, — 

51 


JJforg  But  no ! — 'tis  the  dream  of  a  dastard,  a  dolt, — 
of  Jiatriffe  'twere  a  children's  folly,  a  sin — 

Yet  what  right  doing  of  all  our  lives,  what  sacri 
fice  ever  shall  win 

Reward  so  regal  ?  And  yet,  the  end  !  If  I  held 
you  once  as  a  wife, 

God !  what  a  thing  were  I  to  sink  content  to  the 
old  blank  life ! 

But  it  is  not  I  who  shall  blench  at  the  risk, — 
the  madness,  the  crime,  if  you  will, — 

Yours  is  the  right  to  rebuke  or  accede, — Will 
you  marry  me  then,  Saville  ?" 


Sobbing  she  answered,  "  Dear  heart !  the  wrong, 

if  any  there  be  is  mine, — 
I  should  have  vision  for  both  of  us ;  but  I  am  the 

night-shade's  vine, 

Purple  and  scarlet  with  poison,  throttling  what 
ever  I  twine, — 
These  are  hysterical  ravings !     Forget  them ! 

My  spirit  hath  passed 
Through  a  long  purgatorial  penance,  but  now 

soareth  lark-like  at  last, 
And  I  cannot  be  sorry  this  moment,  dear  heart, 

e'en  for  your  lampless  eyes, — 
I  am  glad  they  must  fail  to  discern  in  my  own 

the  exquisite  rapture  that  lies 

52 


Mixed  with  my  tears, — -tears  vanishing  now  un 
der  your  kiss  as  the  dew 

In  the  sun  !  And  where  have  you  lingered,  my 
king,  these  horrible  centuries  through, 

While  I  pined  and  paled  in  the  dungeon-damps, 
waiting  for  you — for  you !  " 


of 


S3 


of  JUatriffe     y^~x   August  imperial !  Night  divine !  O  infinite 
\_S      passionate  sea  1 

Each  of  itself  is  a  gift  so  rich  that  well  may 

the  high  gods  be 

Envying  man  the  sweet  low  earth  and  their  beau 
tiful  trinity ! 

Kyrle  and  Saville  went  wandering  on,  slow  pac 
ing  the  surf-beat  shore, 

And  he  stumbled  not,  for  she  chose  the  path, 
and  heavy  his  arm  hung  o'er 

Her  delicate  shoulders ;  so  faithfully,  so  spaniel- 
humble  she  led, 

Kyrle  had  not  dashed  his  foot  on  a  stone  since 
the  vernal  day  they  were  wed. 


Fair  is  the  dawn,  when  the  half-waked  robins 

closelier  nestle  and  croon, 
Fair,  but  faint  by  the  smiting  white  supernal 

splendor  of  noon, 
And  they  who  but  warble  of  "Love's  Young 

Dream  "  methinks  can  never  have  known 
The  gordian  tie  of  an  older  love,  where  shadow 

and  substance  have  grown 
Incorporate  utterly,  not  as  the  moss  clings  into 

the  crannied  stone, 
54 


But  knitted  with  intimate  penetrant  pangs,  as     t 

bone  knitteth  into  bone,  of 

By  the  hours  when  shuddering  nature  brings  to 

racking  reluctant  birth 
Another  soul  to  unravel  anew  the  painful  riddle 

of  earth, — 
By  the  nights  in  the  chamber  of  sickness  when 

the  horror  of  death  cleaves  through, 
And  one  fears  to  wipe  or  to  leave  unwiped  the 

brow  of  its  clustering  dew, — 
By  the  time  when  the  last  hard  gasp  is  hushed 

and  the  poor  little  body  lies  still — 
O  God !     I  have  not  forgotten !     Let  any  write 

of  it  who  will  I 
By  the  kisses  that  leaven  the  soddenest  lives,  the 

kisses  that  stab  as  with  spears 
Of  rapture  the  dull  integument  of  the  sordid  and 

leaden-paced  years, 
Kisses  for  which  full  many  a  man  and  maiden 

have  counted  it  well 
To  court  dishonor  and  death  and  burn  forever  in 

burning  hell, — 
Shall  a  slight  thing  come  to  dissever  the  twain 

cemented  thus  heart  to  heart  ? 
Shall  they  sundered  be  though  earth  divides  ? 

Can  God  even  drive  them  apart  ? 


55 


said  that  not  overmuch  do  they  speak, 
of  JJatnffe  lovers  long  happily  wed, — 

Nay,  'twere  superfluous, — where  is  the  need? 

since  all  that  the  one  would  have  said 
The   other  discerns  in  a  tangent  tone,  a  sigh, 

or  a  lifted  lash, 
Whose  hidden  intent  doth  cycle  and  spread  as 

the  waves  from  a  pebble's  plash, — 
But  not  as  yet  could  this  pair  dispense  with  the 

word's  mere  pleasure  and  need, 
Nor  in  silence  commune,  which  accomplishment 

is  a  matter  of  lustrums  indeed, 
And  Kyrle,  sense-hampered  and  shorn  of  sight, 

delighted  forever  to  hark 
Saville,  like  Elaine,  embroidering  the  velvety 

shield  of  the  dark, — 
She  told  how  a  race  serenely  pure  dwelt  in  some 

fury-fed  spark, 
How  a  demon-brood  infested  the  whitest  orb  of 

the  glittering  arc, — 
How  the  wandering  Pleiad  was  she  herself,  who 

had  long,  long  ages  ago 
Resolved  to  dip  to  the  dear  dim  earth,  rocking  so 

tiny  below, 
And  had  fearfully  waited  where  comets  whirred 

and  planets  loomed  monstrous  and  grim, 
Waiting  the  silvery  summons  of  Love, — waiting 

for  him,  for  him  I 

56 


And  she  fretted  oft  at  the  noble  verse  of  The    g^  &tort> 

Book — "  There  shall  be  no  night  " —  0 

For  what  were    a    day    everlasting,   garishly, 

brazenly  bright, 
To  this  tablature  soft  and  Egyptian,  charactered 

over  with  light, 
Where  the  mind  in  the  giant   science  trained, 

the  lore  of  the  terrible  stars, 
Swings  confident  past  the  asteroids  slight,  past 

neighboring  Venus  and  Mars, 
Out  where  each   diamond   grain   of  dust   is   a 

throbbing  and  thousand-fold  world, 
And  the  intellect,  steady  and  poised  at  first,  is 

faster  and  faster  whirled 
Till  it  staggers  and  swoons  in  the  awful  void, 

and  trembling  and  over-awed 
Flies  as   a  child  to  its  father  to  the  tenderer 

thought  of  God. 


And  partly  she  worshiped  the  night  because  she 
was  liker  her  husband  then, — 

More  than  himself,  she  scarce  could  see, — the 
star-seed,  and  now  and  again 

A  lamp  in  a  cottage,  a  Stygian  boat,  and  ever 
the  refluent  line 

Of  the  little  sad  waves  that  followed  them,  seem 
ing  to  murmur  and  pine 

57 


And  beg  for  an  alms,  a  dole,  from  her  too  munifi- 
of  JJatriffe  cent  share, — 

She  could  weep  in  the  midst  of  her  happiness, 
hearing  that  endless  prayer, — 

There  had  been  a  time  she  had  walked  alone  by 
the  miserly  sea,  she  said, 

And  for  one  pale  pearl  from  its  caverns  dim  her 
self  had  begged  vainly  instead ; 

She  had  woven  a  song,  a  trifling  strain,  of  that 
starved  and  insatiate  time, — 

Would  he  hear  the  thing  ?  she  was  something 
gifted,  'twas  said,  in  music  and  rhyme. 


ON  THE  BEACH. 

The  ocean  is  life  and  the  beach 

Is  time,  and  days  are  the  waves 
That  heavily  each  over  each, 

Now  wild  when  the  equinox  raves, 
Now  languid  in  summer,  do  still 

Curl  green  with  the  coil  of  a  snake, 
And  ponderous,  cruel,  and  chill, 

In  laughter  and  mockery  break. 

I  hoped  long  ago  that  a  wave 

Might  bring  to  me  jetsam  of  price, — 
What  tapestries  silken  and  brave, 

What  chests  full  of  Indian  spice 
I  fancied  were  destined  for  me 

58 


As  I  ran  to  and  fro  on  the  strand 
In  search  of  the  treasures  the  sea  of  JJatriffe 

Mnst  certainly  bring  to  my  hand. 

But  thousands  of  waves  have  come  in, 

Mere  bubbles  and  foam  as  their  freight, — 
Oh,  weary  the  watching  has  been, 

And  still  do  I  hungrily  wait, 
For  what  ?  for  a  morsel  of  bread, 

Though  scarce  if  it  comes  within  reach 
Can  I  rouse  from  this  apathy  dead, 

So  famished  I  wait  on  the  beach ! 

And  Kyrle  mused  silent,  while  slowly  his  mind, 

as  whelmed  in  the  gulf-stream's  drift, 
Swirled  far  in  a  vague  speculation :  This  poetic, 

this  perilous  gift, 
Whose  owner  may  dwell  in  the  ultimate  stars 

and  is  free  of  a  fairy-knoll, 
Who  heareth  the  grass  give  thanks  to  the  rain, 

who  readeth  a  dragon-fly's  soul, 
Who  trembles  at  night  to  list  the  winds  conspire 

and  whisper  and  plot, 
Who  of  choice  is  blind  to  all  false  foul  things 

and  seeth  but  that  which  is  not, 
How  can  a  creature  like  this  endure  humanity's 

sordid  lot- — 
How  sink  from  its  rosy  and  opal  haunts  in  filmy 

Elysian  tracts 

59 


To  life  and  its  commoner  uses,  its  hard  mathe- 
of  gcuriffe  matical  facts? 


That  song  of  Saville's — she  had  suffered,  be  sure; 

one  could  hearken  the  ruddy  slow  drip 
From  a  heart  which  relentless  Fate  had  crushed 

in  mortal  implacable  grip, — 
Ah,  well !  we  are  born  to  suffer, — we  are  bound 

in  an  iron  spiked  wheel 
And  roll  down  a  slope  precipitous  till  the  senses 

sicken  and  reel, 
And  hapty  their  sorrows  are  lighter  and  less  who 

can  sing  what  their  fellows  but  feel ! 


"  Thanks  for  your  song,  my  sweet,"  he  said  "  it 
quickens  and  quivers  with  truth, — 

And  yet  I  must  marvel  a  woman  like  you,  dow 
ered  with  beauty  and  youth, 

Should  have  girded  at  loneliness  blank  yet  brief, 
nor  have  guessed  it  was  certain  to  end, — 

Did  you  not  know  God  in  His  own  good  time 
would  happy  deliverance  send  ?  " 


The  liquid  plaint  of  the  lapsing  waves  was  the 

only  sound  for  a  space, 
Then   Saville :    "  My   beauty  you  never  have 

named  till  now, — shall  I  dexterous  trace 
60 


Word-semblance  thereof,  and  limn  for  you  the 

lines  of  this  poor  fair  face  ?  "  of  JJatriffe 


"  Not  so ! "  laughed  Kyrle,  "  too  well  I  fathom 
your  woman's  and  poet's  ways — 

The  truth  within  you  abideth  not, — you  would 
lure  me  into  a  maze, 

And  muddy  your  matchless  beauty,  miring  it 
with  dispraise! " 

"  No,  no  1 "  quoth   Saville,  "  Oh,  I  should  not 

dare ! — What,  speak  of  my  person  a  lie, 
Defaming  the  charms  which  had  you  but  seen  I 

surely  had  won  you  by  ? 
Nay,  dear  heart,  shall  I  paint  for  you  a  meteor's 

arrowy  flight, 
The  captain  jewels  that  blaze  serene  in  the  tiara 

of  night, 
And  not  do  justice  to  this  my  beauty  and  bring 

it  full  plain  to  your  sight  ? 
For  I  am  beautiful, — amethyst  clear  are  mine 

eyes,  and  yet  amaranth  deep, 
Violets  held  by  a  nixie's  hand  under  the  liquid 

sweep 
Of  a  brook,  little  wells  where  truth  celestial  lieth 

in  summery  sleep, 
And  my  hair  glints  gold  as  our  marriage  ring, 

and  lifts  in  a  shimmering  cloud 

61 


Over  a  face  that  is  girlish  fair,  candid  and  noble- 
of  ^atriffe  browed, 

Yet  'ware  of  its  own  perfections  High,  and  some 
thing  haughty  and  proud, 

Scarce  warmer  in  tint  than  the  cornel's  leaf  or  a 
runlet's  eddying  foam 

Till  your  voice  or  touch  calls  the  straying  blood 
back  to  its  natural  home, 

And  then, — not  the  heart  of  a  half-blown  rose 
holds  ever  a  hue  so  sweet 

As  the  pink  in  the  cheek  of  a  woman  where 
youth  and  happiness  meet !  " 


"  I  am  as  a  wanton  boy  who  rifles  the  trillium's 

marshy  bed, 
And  wins   unweeting  an  orchid  rare,   sacred, 

dove-shapen  instead, — 
I,  presumptuous,  kneel  at  your  shrine,  abasing 

my  penitent  head  I  " 

"  Yet  what  is  Beauty  unknown  of  Love?  Naught 

but  a  sea-lamp  unfed, 
Uninformed  by  the  golden  oil  and  flame,  a  dark 

in  the  dark  overhead, 
No  beacon  to  save  the  mariner's  bones   from 

seeking  the  bones  of  the  dead, — 
And  I  was  not  always  so  beautiful,  dear;  the 

flush  and  the  light  to  my  face 
62 


Came  as  the  sun  strikes  rosily  through  some 

cold  alabastrian  vase 
With  the  first  swift  words  that  I  heard  you  say, 

and  'twas  under  your  quickening  kiss 
That  I  grew  to  be  as  adorable,  love,  as  parian- 

perfect  as  this  !  " 


of 


XI. 

of  |&nriffe     ^-^  AME  a  season  when  Nature  from  smiling 

V^/      ceased  and  lay  with  a  deathstruck  stare 

Drowned  on  the  beach  with  oozy  weeds  and 

brown  wet  shells  in  her  hair, 
With  her  vesture  drenched  and  her  poor  bruised 

feet  lying  all  stark  and  bare, 
And  leviathan  billows  bemocked  their  prey,  and 
mangled  and  mouthed  her  there. 


And  the  wind  demoniac  howled    around    the 

house,  scarce  more  than  a  hut, 
Where  Kyrle  and  Saville  and  their  happiness 

were  safe  from  the  tempest  shut, 
And  the  cheery  lamp  shed  a  kindly  glow  over 

the  humble  place, 
And  the  nets  and  the  bits  of  coral  and  spar  lent 

it  a  simple  grace. 


"  If  only  this  cottage  were  ours,  Saville !  if  this 

our  idyl  might  be 
Played  for ,  a  white  half-year  divine  down  by  the 

ice  fringed  sea  I 
But  alas  I  the  sable  curtain  must  drop,  and  the 

actors  perforce  must  flee !  " 


Then  the  wife,  who  crouched  on  the  rug,  her 
head  on  her  husband's  knee, 


Murmured,  "  Fret  not  thyself,  dear  heart,  but    tfc 
leave  thou  the  matter  to  me  I  "  of 


"  No,  no*1 "  said  Kyrle,  "  you  have  often  read 
how  shipwrecked  men  in  a  boat 

Of  their  meagre  provision  of  water  and  bread 
take  painfullest  reckoning  note, — 

Sweet  captain,  how  many  days  shall  elapse  that 
we  together  may  float  ?  " 


Then  the  woman  broke  out  in  a  passion  of  sobs, 

grovelling  down  on  the  floor, 
"Oh,  I  have  tricked  you  and  trapped  you,  Kyrle ! 

I  am  vile  to  the  innermost  core  I 
I  am  not  what  I  seem — what  I  swore  that  I  was, 

to  make  your  deception  complete, 
A  destitute  girl, — I  am  rich  instead, — rich,  and 

a  liar  and  cheat !  " 


Then  Kyrle  sprang  up  in  an  agonized  whirl  of 

righteous  horror  and  wrath, 
Like  one  who  beholds  a  malignant  snake  rear 

green  and  gold  in  his  path, — 
What  1  had  he  given  his  father's  name,  his  heart, 

and  his  honest  clean  hand 
To  a  thing  defiled  by  the  pavement's  soil,  out  of 

society  banned, 

65 


Destined  to  uses  unlawful  and  stamped  with  a 
of  ^atriffe  scarlet  brand  ? 

Not  oft  in  this  century's  languid  end  do  the 

fingers  itch  to  garrote 
Like  the  Moor's  the  blue-veined  animate  snow  of 

a  darling  delicate  throat, — 
No,  no  1  'twas  a  virginal  soul,  Saville's, — the  eyes 

of  his  mind  were  not  seared, 
And  his  heart  fell  calm  and  he  said  "  Speak  on  1 " 

and  she  never  wist  what  he  had  feared. 


Then  she  told  her  story, — how  she  herself  was 
the  beautiful  chatelaine 

Of  L'Estrange, — how  her  wealth  and  beauty 
were  tawdriest  baubles  and  vain, 

For  of  all  the  suitors  that  asked  her  hand  never 
a  one  could  convince 

The  maid  that  he  wooed  for  herself  alone,  a  gen 
uine  Fairy  Prince, 

And  then  when  he  came  in  triumph  at  last,  her 
hero,  her  king,  her  Kyrle, 

And  offered  his  tiny  pittance  as  to  a  dowerless 

girl, 
What  could  she  do  but  accept  it  and  dwell  with 

him  down  by  the  sea 

In  a  world  where  romance  and  passion  and  by 
gone  miracles  be  ? 
66 


How  she  had  panted  to  tell  him  I  her  heart  had 

ached  that  a  lie,  of 

However  so  harmless  and  tacit  a  one,  shonld 

sully  their  intercourse  high, 
That  a  gossamer  slight  as  a  thistle's  down  should 

cross  the  cerulean  sky — 
There  were  wives,  she  knew,  who  smiled  and 

sang,  some  sepulchre-secret  untold — 
She  herself  was  a  verier  woman  than  such,  nor 

cast  in  an  Amazcn-mold, 
And  now  that  he  knew  her  trespass  a  weight 

from  her  bosom  rolled  I 


Kyrle  silent  sat,  but  he  reached  his  hand  to  the 

living  gold  of  her  hair, 

Thinking  how  pure  must  the  nature  be,  how  in 
wardly  white  and  fair, 
That  cowered  at  such  a  venial  sin  in  uttermost 

shame  and  despair, — 
Their  bond,  though  of  steel,  had  unriveted  been ; 

most  perfectly  had  she  known 
They  must  travel  their  weary  and  several  ways, 

walking  forever  alone, 
If  but  to  his  spirit  startled  and  proud  a  hint  of 

the  truth  were  blown, — 
She  had  had  wisdom  and  daring  for  both — Ay, 

she  had  been  overwise ! 


A  serpentisli  feminine  creature,  compounded  of 
of  JJatriffe  lures  and  of  lies, 

Void  of  the  commonest  honesty  even,  false  to  his 

helpless  eyes, — 
Strange !  that  tonight,  next  week,  next  month, 

or  when  fifty  years  had  gone  by, 
Whether  she  chid  or  caressed  him  or  laughed, 

or  mourned  with  a  bitter  sad  cry, 
He  perforce  must  debate  the  thing  in  his  heart, 

"  But  is  this  true  now,  or  a  lie  ?  " — 
Why,  he  had  trusted  her  as  his  God,  and  lo! 

she  had  bought  him  and  sold, 
Made  him  a  chattel,  a  page,  a  toy  to  deck  with 

her  chains  of  gold, 
A  Delilah's  dupe, — 'twere  better  to  be  mould  in 

the  churchyard  mould ! 


Ah,  well !    myself,  I  have   pity  alone  for  the 

women  who  fail  of  the  right, — 
I  know  not  in  faith  how  it  is  we  are  made  so  the 

black  seemeth  often  the  white, — 
We  aspire  to  a  dew-drop's  clarity,  to  a  resolute 

self-control, 
To  face  the  world — why,  the  woman  lives  not 

who  even  can  face  her  own  soul ! 
Ah,  frail  is  our  tenure  of  sanity,  safety,  serenity, 

calm, 
68 


At  the  mercy  of  any  unlooked-for  pang  or  merest 

material  qualm,  of  JJatriffe 

And  the  astral  truth  that  is  grasped  today  in 
prayerful  solitude 

Seems  but  a  trifle,  a  thing  of  naught,  in  tomor 
row's  hysterical  mood  I 

But  Kyrle  was  a  man  and  so  heaven  had  blessed 
him  with  absolute  masculine  sense 

Of  the  right  and  the  wrong,  with  a  grand  dis 
dain  of  subterfuge  and  pretense, — 

He  had  harbored  a  foe  in  his  household,  and 
now  he  was  stung  with  a  doubt 

How  to  punish  the  viperish  evil  and  cast  the  in 
truder  out. 

Then  Saville,  still  sobbing,  writhed  up  to  her 

knees,  and  he  felt  her  poor  heart  beating 

wild 
'Gainst  his  own,  resentful  and  harsh  as  Lear's, 

obdurate,  unreconciled, 
And  for  pity  she  plead,  and  pardon,  and  her  plea 

was  the  plea  of  a  child, 
"There  are  many  worse  women  than  I  am,  dear, — 

truly,  though  you  have  forgot, — 
I  must  read  you  the  terrible  papers  and  show 

you  if  there  are  not  1  " 

69 


And  she  seemed  of  an  infantine  weakness,  and 
of  J&uriffe  sudden  lie  felt  ashamed 

To  be  wroth  with  so  cyclamen-frail  a  thing,  and 
never  a  word  he  blamed 

His  penitent  love,  but  hushed  her  sobs,  implor 
ing  her  not  to  weep, — 

And  she  strove  with  a  broken  smile  to  obey;  but 
thrice  in  the  midnight  deep, 

Kyrle,  lying  awake  while  the  equinox  raged, 
heard  a  moan  break  sharp  through  her 
sleep. 

Ah !  in  that  night  that  must  come  to  us  all,  when 

a  dear  one  low  lies  in  the  grave, 
Pray  God  that  we  need  not  remember  how  once 

the  lost  darling  did  crave 
In  vain  for  our  word  of  forgiveness  and  tenderest 

patience, — Nay,  more  I 
Pray  God  we  recall  some  moment  we  might  justly 

have  scarified  o'er 
With  lava-reproaches  a  trembling  offender,  but 

sweetly  forbore  I 


70 


XII. 

OUR  life  is  a  triplicate  twisted  cord  of  gray  of 
and  of  gold  and  of  white, — 
The  gray  is  the  strand  of  the  body  and  sen 
suous  subtle  delight, 

The  gold  is  the  intellectual  force,  Jovian  in  tri 
umph  and  might, 

And  the  essence  astatic,  ethereal,  eternal,  that  is 
the  filament  white, — 

And  none  on  the  low  brown  earth  there  be  so 
wholly  of  white  and  gold, 

So  rapt  in  unperishing  verities  on  heights  of 
Siberian  cold, 

So  saturate  with   conviction,  so   pierced  with 
truth  icicle-keen, 

As  to  cast  the  servitude  utterly  off  of  pleasure 
in  things  terrene, — 

And  Kyrle,  lapped  soft  in  a  luxury  he  never 
had  known  or  had  dreamed, 

Grew  half  content  for  a  little  space  with  the 
things  of  this  world  and  seemed 

To  drowse  in  uxorious  slothful  fields,  lotosed, 
Lethean-streamed. 


And  Saville  was  the  sweetest  of  ministrants  ;  the 
scheme  of  her  life  was  full  plain 

To  her  sight ;  she  but  lived  for  this  man ;  her 
fathers  had  garnered  the  grain 

71 


Of  tlieir  wealth  for  Ms  use  and  behoof;  her 
of  J$curiffe  mother  had  travailed  and  died 

That  Kyrle  in  the  fullness  of  time  might  have 

her  to  hold  as  a  bride, — 
She  had  studied  the  lore  of  the  ages,  had  drawn 

from  Pierian  wells, 
Her  fingers  and  voice  she  had  trained  to  blend 

as  the  pealing  of  silver  bells, 
She  had  learned  to  wile  from  the  poet's  page  a 

poetry  more  than  his  own, 
Had  won  from  the  spinning  earth  its  song  and 

its  axle's  undertone, 
Merely  that  he  in  his  barred  black  cell  might 

feel  himself  less  alone. 


We  can  but  smile  at  the  modern  cry  for  an 

equaler  social  plan, — 
Man  is  the  servant  of  God  alone,  but  woman 

serves  God  and  man, 
And  God   is  the  greater,   certainly,  but  man 

dwelleth  here  below, 
Not  at  a  vast  vague  altitude,  too  loftily  far  to 

know 
If  we  lay  at  his  altar  the  homage  meek,  the 

allegiance  that  we  owe. 
We  may  wrap  in  a  napkin  our  talents  and  God 

will  not  thunder  or  smite, 
72 


But  woe  to  the  household  drudge  who  keepeth 

the  fire  on  the  hearth  not  bright.  of 

What  are  we  in  spite  of  our  gifts  and  graces  but 

merest  Circassian  slaves 
Shallops  fragile  or  stately  ships  lashed  by  the 

wind  and  the  waves, — 
And   none   dare   impugn  though  the  ocean  be 

covered   with    rudder-less    spume-sprent 

wrecks, — 
'Tis  nature's  immutable  law,  and  endures  through 

the  ages  while  sex  is  sex. 


I  grant  we  might  wander  in  wisdom's  ways  and 
follow  the  windings  thereof, 

If  we  might  but  free  our  little  white  feet  from 
the  tangling  briony,  love, — 

'Tis  sad  when  a  woman  to  whom  the  fates  An 
tony's  powers  allot 

Will  eloquent  thrill  a  multitude,  for  freedom  will 
plan  and  will  plot, 

Then  weeps  next  morning  a  good  two  hours  for 
a  parting  kiss  forgot ! 


Yes,  truly, — 'tis  said  there  are  women  who  their 

earthly  pilgrimage  run 
Unloved,  unloving  as  is  the  Sphinx  ;  speak  not 

of  it ;  me,  I  am  one 

73 


With  a  horror  of  any  monstrosity  rank  in  the 
of  ^atriffe  smile  of  tlie  sun  j 


But  to   resume:   This   lesson,   O   friend,   God 

grant  thou  hast  long  ago  learned, — 
No  blossom  that  springs  in  our  weedy  path  is 

small  enough  to  be  spurned, — 
Is  it  a  gold-graven  chalice  of  wine,  the  cup  of 

thy  present  delight, 
Or  only  an  oak-leaf  filled  from  a  spring,  dripping 

with  diamonds  white  ? 
Drink  thou  as  if  it  were  proffered  of  gods,  e'en 

as  the  draught  were  thy  last, — 
To-morrow  mayhap  the  water  and  wine  and  the 

sweet  strong  thirst  will  have  passed  1 


Came  a  day  when  Saville  saw  'twas  over,  saw  it 

too  cruelly  plain, 
The  months  that  had  been  a  restoring  lull  'twixt 

gusts  of  repining  and  pain, 
As  an  eglantine  scent  blown  over  a  brook  'mid 

dashes  of  August  rain, 
As  the  noontide  rest  of  two  wayworn  gipsies  hid 

in  a  leafy  lane, — 
For  seeking  out  Kyrle  in  his  room  one  day  she 

found  him  asleep  in  a  chair, 
The  westering  rays  on  his  handsome  face  and 

bronzing  the  brown  of  his  hair, 

74 


And  lie  seemed  as  a  carven  statue,  and  the  wife 

stopped  stricken  and  gasped, 
For   close   in  his  long  unused   right   hand  his 

palette  and  brushes  were  grasped. 


And  how  he  had  found  in  the  dark  these  things 

she  could  not  imagine  or  know, 
And  she  closed  the  door  and  stole  away,  leaving 

him  sleeping  so, 
And  in   solitude  knelt   for   a   bitter   hour   and 

wrestled  alone  with  her  woe, 
Yet  loved  him  a  hundred-fold  better  because  he 

had  broken  the  thrall 
Of  her  arms  for  a  vision  of  duty,  nor  made  her 

his  all  in  all. 

Came  another  day,  —  outside  'twas  wild,  and  the 

wind  whistled  scimetar  shrill, 
Whipping    the    terrified   snowflakes    sheeplike 

over  the  hill, 
But  in  the  library  dense  with   thought  where 

loitered  Kyrle  and  Saville 
Peaceful  was  all  the  atmosphere,  solemnly,  heav 

enly  still, 
Save  as  the  woodbine  tapped  the  pane  with  little 

coquettish  starts, 
Or  an   ash  fell  feathery  on  the   hearth  'neath 

rosy  and  violet  darts. 

75 


They  were  sitting  the  width  of  the  room  apart 
of  JJatriffe  and  she  had  been  reading  from  "  Maud," 

When  sudden  he  spoke  in  a  voice  at  once  ex 
ultant  and  deeply  awed, 
"  Saville, — dear  heart !  I  have  not  dared  to  say 

what  for  days  I  have  guessed — 
That  God  in  His  infinite  mercy  and  wisdom  and 

love  accounteth  it  best 

To  relume  the  lamps  in  their  sockets,  to  sum 
mon  the  long-fled  guest, 
To  roll  the  hideous  weight  away  that  years  on 

my  life  hath  pressed, — 
There,  as  I  point,  is  a  grayness — a  glimmer — a 

dark  less  Cimmerian  profound, — 
Am  I  right  ?  Is  it  haply  a  glimpse  through  a  cur- 

tainless  casement  of  snow-covered  ground? 
Here  on  the  left  is  a  lurid  lifting  of  shadow, — it 

almost  is  red, — 
Is  it  only  a  sulphurous   devil  within,  or  the 

ruddy  clear  fire  instead  ? 
I  scarcely  dare  hope, — yet  I  have  remembered 

all  of  this  year,  Saville, 
That  the  day  we  met  you  promised  my  sight — 

But  what  is  it,  love  ?     Are  you  ill — 
Are  you  gone  from  the  room  that  I  meet  with 

alone  this  silence  so  strange  and  so  chill  ? 
Why,  I  looked  for  a  tempest  of  laughter  and 

doubts,  and  for  floods  of  rejoicing  tears, — 


We  shall  never  have  cause  for  such  joy  again  in 

all  of  our  three  score  years  !  of 

Speak,  I  command  you !  'Tis  cruel  as  hell  to 
mock  at  my  helplessness  so, — 

'Tis  unworthy,  unwomanly,  all  unlike  the  tender 
Saville  I  know, — 

Dear,  I  am  frightened — a  whimpering  child — 
come  to  me  or  I  go 

Seeking  you,  sick  to  the  soul  with  fear,  stagger 
ing  to  and  fro  !  " 


And  he  rose   and  gropingly  crossed  the  room, 

grasping  the  empty  air, 
And  loud  in  his  heart  was  a  knocking  dread  and 

low  on  his  lips  was  a  prayer, 
And  at  last  by  the  door  his  foot  struck  dull  in 

the  coil  of  her  soft  sweet  hair. 


77 


XIII. 
of  ^atriffe     *TT*  H£  pu]se  came  back  to  the  marble  wrist 

A        and  the  faint  sad  lids  unfurled, 

And   Saville  perceived  with  a  wild   regret 
that  'twas  not  the  end  of  the  world, 

And  slowly  she  turned  on  her  languid  divan, 
dismissing  them  all  from  the  room, 

And  shuddering  flung  her  cerements  off,  like 
Lazarus  in  the  tomb, 

And  dragged  her  rebellious  feet  across  the  vel 
vety  carpet,  and  flung 

Herself  odalisque- wise  on  a  couch  where  a  mir 
ror  magnificent  hung. 

For  women,  methinks  that  the  text  should  read, 
"  If  haply  ye  have  all  things 

And  have  not  beauty,  then  have  3^6  naught," 
for  beauty  such  benison  brings 

No  woman  would  barter  it  for  a  crown  or  the 
wealth  barbaric  of  kings  1 

Ah  me !  we  are  gambling  our  lives  away,  play 
ing  a  desperate  game 

Where  we  suffer  in  winning  or  losing  alike, — 
'tis  law,  and  there's  no  one  to  blame, — 

And  the  stake  that  we  play  for  is  only  love,  and 
beauty  and  love  are  the  same, 

Or  if  not  the  same,  then  so  closely  knit  that 
none  can  dissever  the  two, — 

78 


Men  swear  that  they  love  us  for  mind  or  soul, 

and  haply  they  think  they  do,  of  JJatriffe 

But   the   veriest   dairymaid   milking    her    cow 

knows  it  is  wholly  untrue ; 
Surely,  plain  women  are  sometimes  loved;  but 

Love  is  a  wizard  so  kind 
That  he  glamours  and  gilds  the  thing  beloved, 

and  causeth  his  servant  to  find 
In  his  choice  the  graces  of  Hebe,  Minerva,  and 

Venus  combined  1 


O  friend !  think  never  to  please  a  woman  by 
praising  her  housewife's  thrift, 

Her  spiritual  fervor  and  zeal  for  God,  her 
rythmic  or  musical  gift, — 

Say  rather  you  like  the  shape  of  the  ear,  or  the 
eyelid's  languorous  lift ! 


Saville  was  enwrapped  in  a  silken  robe,  woven 
of  delicate  pink, 

All  branched  with  lilies  of  silver,  petalling  link 
into  link, 

Fair  as  the  blush  of  the  peach  in  May,  and  sil 
ver  and  pink  were  her  feet, 

And  her  body  was  framed  of  a  lily's  curves,  sil- 
verly  white  and  sweet, 

And  her  hair  was  a  glimmering  golden  mist,  the 
aureole  of  a  saint, 

79 


A  heavenly  halo  above  a  face — Nay  hush  !  for  I 
of  l&Hriffe  dare  not  paint 

That  face  with  its  birthmark  fatal  and  foul,  its 
hideous  carrion-taint  1 


But  Saville  had  confronted  it  all  her  life,  and  to 
day  with  a  ghastly  mirth 

She  twisted  her  lips  to  a  livid  smile,  "  'Tis  well 
that  she  died  at  my  birth, 

My  mother,"  she  mused,  "  for  to-day  her  life  she 
would  deem  but  of  slenderest  worth  !  " 


And  she  lay  and  mourned  how  strange  it  was, 
how  passing  all  utterance  sad 

That  naught  in  the  heart  or  mind  of  a  woman 
the  love  of  a  man  forbade 

So  utterly  as  a  surface  blemish,  a  faulture  gos 
samer  thin, 

Sprung  from  a  tissue  freighted  too  deep  or  a 
hindered  current  within, — 

For  a  woman  may  have  a  petrified  heart,  icy, 
and  rock  to  the  core, 

Scarred  by  tempests  and  seamed  and  gashed, 
lichened  and  rusted  o'er, 

Of  pity  incapable,  never  to  beat  with  a  pulse  of 
kindliness  more, — 

She  may  have  a  mind,  if  you  call  it  a  mind,  the 

sluggish  dull  animal  sense 
80 


That  biddeth  her  eat  and  cover  her  limbs  and    £0e 
maketh  a  decent  pretense  of 

To  veil  with  chatter  or  shroud  with  silence  the 
shame  of  her  ignorance  dense, — 

She  may  have  a  lupine  and  viperish  soul,  disin 
tegrate  with  disease, 

Fibrous   and  pulpy  with   poison,   a  pestilence 
spoiling  the  breeze, — 

'Tis  a  pitiful  comment  on  this  our  life  that  a 
woman  may  have  all  these, 

And  yet  for  her  royal  favor  a  man  will  sue  on 
his  knees, 

Dazzled   so  blind  by  her  beautiful    face  that 
never  a  fault  he  sees  I 


If  ever  a  woman  on  earth  might  hope  to  be  wor 
shipped  for  mind  alone, 

Or  heart  or  soul,  'twas  Saville,  who  was  worthy 
the  love  of  a  prince  to  have  known, — 

But   ah  !    'tis  impossible — nature  revolts — men 
may  sin  against  God  on  high, 

But  not  'gainst  the  law  of  selection ;   however 
they  truckle  and  lie 

And  successfully  feign,  they  cannot  love  a  thing 
from  which  love  must  fly, — 

Poor  girl !  she  had  seen  In  pauper's  hovels  where 
she  was  dispensing  bread 

81 


Disgust  in  the  eyes  she  had  wiped  of  their  tears, 
of  JJatnffe  a  sneer  on  the  lips  she  had  fed, 

A  beggar's  brat  full  patient  and  still  through 

many  a  fevered  dream 
Yet  start  convulsive  at  sight  of  her  face  and  turn 

with  a  ringing  scream, — 
She  had  come  to  believe  that  the  dogs  in  the 

street  howled  as  she  passed  them  by, 
And  every  glance  at  her  face  was  a  blow,  and 

her  every  breath  was  a  cry  ! 


And  now  her  body  seemed  but  as  a  leaf  that 
shrivels  and  curls  in  a  flame, 

And  she  shrank  as  a  slave  shrinks  under  the 
whip  under  her  terrible  shame, — 

She  had  given  herself  as  a  wedded  wife  to  a 
stainless  knight  and  a  true, 

She  whom  never  a  churl  on  earth  could  know 
ingly,  honestly  woo, — 

Oh !  in  a  biting  shame  like  this  there's  only  one 
thing  to  do  I 


Ah,  why  did  he  love  her  so  passing  well  ?     For 

the  very  force  of  that  love 
Idealized,  glorified,  sanctified  her,  throned  her 

all  women  above, 
Made  her  a  star  in  the  firmanent,  the  marvel  and 

wonder  thereof, — 
82 


He  thought  to  see  if  at  last  he  awoke  from  his 

two  years'  visionless  trance  of  Jljatnffe 

That  she  whom  the  fates  had  sent  to  him  by  a 

miracle's  happy  chance 
Was   a    goddess   unparagoned,   cinctured  with 

cloud,  divinely,  immortally  fair, 
Sceptred  and  crowned  with  loveliness,  a  nimbus 

upon  her  hair, 
Violets  springing  up  under  her  feet — O  God! 

O  God  I  could  she  dare 
Lift  her  Medusa-face  to  his  own  and  harden  it 

into  despair  ? 
A  commoner,  coarser-natured  man  might  better 

have  borne  such  blow, 
But  Kyrle  to  be  gyved  to  this  body  of  death, — 

Kyrle  to  be  manacled  so, — 
Kyrle,  with  his  artist's  vision  for  colors  and  con 
tours  trained, — 
Kyrle,  forsooth !   And  she  laughed  aloud,  seeing 

what  thing  remained  1 


And  'twas  not  the  physical  stigma,  the  blot  on 
the  skin  alone, — 

That  his  spirit  might  soar  above, — but  Oh !  he 
could  never  condone 

Her  wicked  deceit  of  silence,  her  garbled  super 
fluous  lies, 

83 


JJforp    That  were  as  a  snivelling  hypocrite's  prayers, 
of  JJfttriffe  a  whining  coward's  who  tries 

To  slaver  himself  with  pretense  of  virtue  and 
whiten  him  in  God's  eyes  1 


A  sonnd  behind  her,  and  Kyrle  came  in,  and  with 

her  low  call  for  a  guide 
He  crossed  the  room  with  his  slow  soft  step  and 

sank  on  the  couch  at  her  side, 
And  belted  her  body  within  his  embrace  and 

pressed  his  clear  ivory  cheek 
'Gainst  hers — no,  not  that  word — no,  no!  but 

barred  with  its  baleful  streak, 
And  murmured,  "  Saville,  my  wife,  my  queen — 

pardon  the  haste  that  could  speak 
Such  tidings  so  blunt — 'twas  a  glowing  breeze 

and  thou  but  a  hyacinth  weak, — 
And  hast   thou  a  womanish  fancy,  love,  that 

mayhap  we  might  drift  apart, 
I  having  once  more  the  armor  and  steed  to  enter 

the  tourney  of  art, — 
That  I  might  grow  careless  of  home  and  thee  ? 

Perish  the  thought,  sweetheart ! 
There's  one  fair  thing  in  the  world,  Saville,  that 

ever  I  long  to  limn, 
That  first  shall  dawn  on  my  long,  long  dark  and 

rise  through  the  shadows  dim, 
84 


That  is  more  than  the  emerald  forests  or  azurine 

heavens  to  me, 
For  a  mother  ne'er  longed  for  her  babe  unborn 

as  I  this  treasure  to  see, 
Which  is  mine  and  still  not  mine  as  yet, — thou 

knowest  it  ?  thou  canst  guess  ?  " 


And  Saville,  with  her  eyes  on  the  mirror,  steadily 
answered  "  Yes  I  " 


XIV. 

of       triffe     T  T  r  E   MAY  dwell  content  in  a  lowly  cot, 
V  V        wearing  our  homespun  gray, 

Neighbored  by  robins  and  lambs  alone 

and  the  squirrels  across  the  way, 
Disprizing  wealth  and  keeping  aloof  from  the 

breakneck  race  of  greed, 
Our  brows  unbeaded  by  hard-wrung  sweat ;  but 

in  time  of  a  dear  one's  need 
Money  is  freedom,  'tis  wings,  'tis  power,  'tis 

verily  life  indeed, — 

Oft  do  we  watch  our  darlings  droop  in  the  merci 
less  Northern  blast 
Knowing  we  well  might  save  them  if  fortune 

would  only  cast 
In  our  way  the  means  to  carry  them  far  where 

zephyrs  auroral  blow — 
What  the  rich  spend  oft  in  a  single  feast — if  only 

'twere  ours — but  no ! 
'Tis  ours  instead  to  watch  next  spring  the  grass 

on  a  new  grave  grow ! 

Saville  herself  wrote  bravely  the  letters  sum 
moning  over  the  land 

The  skill  that  hath  earned  the  right  to  come  at 
only  a  Croesus'  command, 

And  she  quietly  waited  the  verdict ;   she   had 

written  with  steady  hand 
86 


And  heard  with  uneager  impassive  face  the  words      %$t  JJforg 
of  the  surgeon  bland  :  of 

There  was  every  warrant  for  deeming  the  eye 
balls'  nubilous  blur 

A  mere  superficial  obstruction ;  he  would  confi 
dent  even  aver 

They  should  see  complete  restoration ;  and  Sa- 
ville  gave  sign  of  no  stir 

In  her  pulse  at  this  gospel  of  light  to  him,  of 
dark  everlasting  to  her, 

And  never  her  fingers  faltered  through  many  a 
day  and  night 

To  bathe  with  lustral  lotions  and  to  number  the 
drops  aright. 

And  as  one  death-doomed  by  a  mortal  ill,  know 
ing  his  sojourn  is  brief, 

Wastes  never  the  precious  moments  in  useless 
repining  and  grief, 

But  rather  endeavors  to  sweeten  each  hour,  to 
make  its  scarce-hoped-for  boon 

Something  to  sweetly  recall  'mid  the  dark  he 
reluctant  must  enter  so  soon, 

So  Saville  grudged  every  atom  of  time  she  did 
not  with  Kyrle  commune. 


She  little  had  practiced  the  ways  of  the  world, 
this  cloistered  immured  Saville, 


But  now  she  set  snares  for  the  bird  Renown, 
of  J&wffe  an(j  the  journals  began  to  fill 

With  notes  of  Kyrle's  long  hid  sketches,  praise 
of  his  wonderful  skill, 

Predictions  of  his  renascence  and  greater  tri 
umphs  in  store, 

So  that  he  gleefully  laughed  as  she  read,  remind 
ing  her  o'er  and  o'er 

How  she  had  said  in  her  very  first  words  that  if 
he  would  only  adore 

The  Fairy  Saville  all  things  of  good  would  serfs 
at  his  beckoning  be, 

"  And  first  'twas  Love  and  then  'twas  Wealth, 
dear  heart,  that  thou  gavest  me, 

And  now  'tis  Fame,  and  Vision  draws  nigh,  lured 
to  mine  eyes  by  thee  1  " 


And  he  said  'twas  strange  to  reflect  indeed  that 

if  he  had  been  alone 
Throughout  the  term  of  his  blindness,  if  God 

had  not  made  her  known 
To  his  cankered  heart,  'twas  certain  the  mordant 

malevolent  tone 
Of  his  mind  would  have  tainted  his  later  life, 

projecting  through  future  days 
When  the  hand's  sleight  wedded  to  strength  of 

purpose  should  fill  the  world  with  his 

praise, 


And  had  marred  his  work  with  an  atheist's  doubt 

of  God  and  His  questionless  ways.  of  JJatnffe 


But  e'en  as  he  strayed,  a  bewildered  child,  where 

the  tide  swirled  over  the  beach, 
A  starry  seraph  had  caught  his  hand  and  guided 

him  safe  out  of  reach 
Of  the  waves  seductive  of  unbelief  and  their  low 

insidious  speech, 
Whispering,  "  God  is  over  us  all,  and  He  cares 

for  His  children  each  !  " 


And  he  said  that  often  it  frightful  seemed  that 

aught  should  hinder  or  ban 
Our  life  of  a  minute's  duration,  should  shorten 

the  firefly  span 
Of  effort  and  strength  and  passionate  zeal  for 

truth  allotted  to  man, — 
But  it  had  been  well  for  himself  to  pause, — in 

the  interval  he  had  thought, 
Had  won  experience  deep  and  rich  that  should 

in  his  work  be  wrought, 
And  he  could  not  thank  her  in  all  his  life  for  the 

wonderful  things  she  had  taught, — 
Henceforth  his  pictures  should  sing  of  her,  Sa- 

ville  their  dominant  tone, 

Merely  the  pigments  and  tactile  skill,  the  out 
ward  shell,  were  his  own, 


JJforg 
of  J&atnffe 


While  tlie  essence  informing,  the  spirit  divine, 
that  was  Saville's  alone  ! 


And  he  had  fought  down  his  impious  wish : 
Though  helped  by  Angelico's  shade 

To  worthily  trace  her  portrait,  he  was  certain 
that  if  he  essayed 

So  high  a  task  great  Jove  would  smite  and  the 
thunderbolts  make  him  afraid ! 


90 


XV. 

of 

EACH  century  hath,  it  is  said,  its  peculiar 
favorite  sin, 
A   chamber  of  horrors   so   grewsome   and 

dank  no  poet  may  dwell  therein, 
But  the  special  crime  of  this  passing  day  touches 

us  all  so  near 

We  cannot  therefrom  withdraw  our  eyes  how 
ever  they  widen  with  fear, — 
The  journals  will  spare  no  details  of  the  suicide's 

act  and  its  cause, 
The  plunge  or  the  bane  or  the  bullet — Why  may 

not  the  people  have  laws 
To  defend  them  from  hearing  these  blasts  of 

hell  ?     O  tribunes  and  senators !  pause 
In  your  framing  dispensable  edicts,  smoothing 

scarce-visible  flaws, 
And  forbid  the  monsters  black-blooded  and  huge 

to  mangle  these  gouts  in  their  maws  1 


Saville  heard  her  sentence  of  death,  she  felt,  in 

hearing  the  surgeon  say 
The  bandage  should  fall  and  the  curtains  be 

drawn  on  the  first  sweet  morning  of  May, 
A  year  ago — how  the  robins  had  sung  ! — it  had 

been  their  wedding  day ! 


JJforp  When  instinct  of  self-preservation  is  nulled'  and 
of  JJatriffe  "  Hfe  maddens  'gainst  life  amain," 

The  very  loss  of  that  chief  instinct  is  proof  of  a 
clot  on  the  brain, 

And  it  eats  and  honeycombs  night  and  day  like 
a  burrowing  mole  in  the  ground, 

Whether  one  dances  or  dines  or  sleeps,  till  a  vi 
tal  point  it  hath  found, 

And  the  deadliest  sting  of  the  subtle  disease,  the 
devil's  insidious  touch 

Is  that  though  a  temptation  to  mortal  sin  one 
knoweth  it  never  for  such, 

But  esteems  it  the  highest  duty  to  which  a  soul 
can  aspire, 

And  is  lighted  to  self-destruction  by  the  martyr's 
sacrific  white  fire, — 

And  how  shall  one  fail  to  follow  where  the  im 
molate  saints  have  trod, 

How  shrink  from  inflicting  upon  one's  self  the 
flagellant's  merited  rod, 

How  fear  to  cast  out  mere  offal — a  burden  so  lit 
tle  worth 

There  no  longer  is  room  for  it  anywhere  in  all 
of  the  sweet  wide  earth  ? 


Look  you, — why,  haply  beneath  your  roof  one 

weareth  a  steady  smile, 
92 


Sedately  pacing  life's  minuet,  while  steadily  all 

the  while  of 

A  horrid  design  is  forming,  a  fungus  spreads 

cancerous-vile, — 
I  have  held  the  hand  of  a  friend  one  hour  and 

the  next  his  spirit  had  fled, 
Dismissed    by   self    and   violent   means — Who 

knows  ?     Had  I  sisterly  said 
A   word   of  love  I   might   have   dissolved  and 

melted  his  purpose  dread, — 
Clasp  close  the  near  ones  about  your  hearth,  let 

never  caresses  lack, 
For  the  turn  of  a  card,  the  fall  of  a  leaf,  may 

speed  them  adown  the  track 
Facile,    declivitous,    into    the    bourne    of   the 

Acheron  valley  black  ! 


Yet  no, — this  were  not  of  the  least  avail ;  no  aid 
that  is  won  from  without 

Is  offeree  to  cope  with  interior  foes,  to  vanquish 
and  put  them  to  rout, — 

The  brood  ignoble  and  self-engendered  must 
even  self-stifled  be, 

For  a  wanton  zephyr  deracinates  not  the  stur 
diest  forest  tree, 

And  often  this  deadly  virus  breeds  in  a  strong 
determinate  mind, 

93 


In  a  soul  more  stalwart  and  loftier  far  than  the 
of  J&triffe  bulk  of  the  human  kind, 

Whose  motive  is  not  a  coward's,  to  spare  itself 

woe  and  disgrace, 
But  to  rid  the  world  of  a  tainted  thing,  to  die  for 

the  sake  of  the  race. 


Yet  if  so  be  that  one  conquers  temptation  and 
out  of  the  gates  of  hell 

Flame-blackened  with  shrivelling  garments  back 
cometh  alive  and  well, 

There's  not  on  the  earth  a  stronger  soul  than 
such  a  king-spirit  must  be, 

That  hath  even  outdaunted  Satan  himself,  bid 
ding  him  tremble  and  flee, — 

Nothing  can  shake  the  integrity,  the  rock's  im 
pregnable  strength 

Of  the  fort  long  assaulted  that  now  is  left  to  its 
hard  won  peace  at  length, — 

Exalted,  serene,  the  spirit  shall  reign  in  its  un 
touched  citadel, 

And  look  henceforth  with  an  equal  eye  on  the 
things  of  heaven  or  hell ; 

Less  ineffable  now  is  the  heliotrope  scent,  and 
life  seemeth  scarcely  so  sweet, 

But  neither  looms  death  so  dragonish  grim  nor 

annihilate  dark  so  complete, 
94 


For  the  soul  that  was  but  as  a  reed  in  the  wind 

hath  attained  a  Nirvana  of  calm,  of 

And  is  in  this  feverous  desert  of  life  a  fountain 
of  healing  and  balm, 

And  pilgrims  shall  be  refreshed  thereat,  shall 
gratefully  lave  and  drink, 

And  maidens  shall  garlands  wreathe  of  forget- 
me-nots  fringing  the  brink, 

And  many  shall  love  the  spring  fern-hidden, 
shall  precious  esteem  it  and  dear, 

Not  knowing  what  throes  volcanic  and  fierce 
have  left  it  so  crystalline  clear. 


95 


XVI. 
of  guriXk     £*  WEET  April,  blossomy  April,  the  laughing 

*CJ     capricious  inaid, 

Had  velvet  enamellar  carpets  spread  in  gar 
den  and  glebe  and  glade, 

Had  carelessly  dropped  her  loose-clasped  gold, 
dotting  with  coins  the  lawn, 

Had  lingered  for  thirty  ravishing  days,  and  to 
night  was  almost  gone, 

For  the  latest  even  of  April  had  come,  and  the 
soft  air,  moist  with  rain, 

Stole  through  the  ivied  casement,  a  lilac  breath 
in  its  train, 

Over  the  two  who  had  known  together  a  year  of 
divinest  love, 

And  who  now  had  come  by  the  will  of  fate  to  the 
last  sweet  moment  thereof. 


"  Kyrle,  I  have  something  to  ask,"  she  said,  tim 
idly  stroking  his  hand, 

"  Answer  me  not  with  blame  of  my  weakness, 
but  try,  dear,  to  understand, — 

It  is  that  you  let  me  leave  home  to-night, — but 
of  course,  dear  Kyrle,  not  for  long, — 

I  dare  not  be  present  to-morrow, — I  have  aye 
been  so  brave  and  so  strong 

That  haply  you  think  I  can  bear  all  things, — 
but  if  the  result  should  go  wrong, 


If  you  should  not  see  as  they  say  you  will,  if 

instead  of  triumphal  song,  of 

Your  voice  breaks  down  in  a  heartstruck  wail  at 
a  failure  abrupt  and  complete, 

I  could  not  survive  the  cruel  shock, — I  should 
drop  down  dead  at  your  feet !  " 


"  Nay  now,  Saville,  thou  art  far  too  bold, — why, 

what  shall  it  profit  me 
The  fleecy  flocks  of  the  sky  to  mark,  the  crocus 

and  primrose  to  see, 
Ay,  even  my  first  love,  *  Rupert's  Trust,'  and 

not — O  Saville  I  not  thee  ? 
Yet  thou  shalt  never  ask  boon  in  vain, — I  will 

thine  almoner  be, 
A  warden  most  lenient, — Go,  dear  heart !  for  a 

score  of  hours  thou  art  free  I  " 


And  softly  she  thanked  her  lord  and  liege,  meek 

as  a  scriptural  wife, 
And  he  might  not  discern  from  her  even  tones 

with  what  pangs  her  bosom  was  rife, 
Nor  dreamed  that  in  passing  away  that  night 

she  was  passing  sheer  out  of  his  life. 

And  she  came  and  knelt  by  his  chair  once  more, 
wrapped  in  her  soft  rich  cloak, 

97 


And  nestled  her  poor  sad  face  in  Ms  breast  and 
of  JJatriffe  brokenly,  tenderly  spoke, 

"  O  love,  my  love,  in  the  days  to  come  winnow 

thy  mind  of  the  ill 
I  haply  have  done  thee, — remember  alone  that  I 

was  thy  Fairy  Saville  !  " 

And  he  kissed  her  thrice  and  he  said  "  Good 
night,"  and  she  bit  back  a  passionate  cry, 

And  he  noted  not  in  his  hope  and  joy  that  her 
answering  word  was  "  Good-bye !  " 


XVII. 

IT  WAS  over,  Ms  long  suspense  and  doubt ;     of 
the  delicate  daring  hand 
Had  executed  successfully  the  intellect's  keen 

command, — 
O,  scarce  in  the  New  Jerusalem  paven  with  gold 

and  with  pearls, 

Scarce  shall  the  ransomed  of  God  know  rapture 
diviner  than  Kyrle's  I 

For  an  hour  or  twain  'twas  enough  to  enjoy, 

merely  that  God  had  said 
"  Let  there  be  light  I "  for  him  once  more,  and 

had  summoned  his  eyes  from  the  dead, 
But  quickly  the  rift  crept  widening  in, — 'twas 

but  a  mere  broken  toy, 
A  splintered  gem,  a  goblet  cracked,  if  Saville  did 

not  share  in  his  joy. 
He  blamed  himself  for  granting  her  prayer, — 

she  should  have  remained  beside 
Her  husband  and  bravely  fronted  with  him  what 

weal  or  woe  should  betide, — 
Alone  ?     Why,  not  so  alone  had  he  been  before 

they  ever  had  met, — 
A  tenebrous  wall  of  solitude,   carven  of  solid 

jet, 
Immured  him  round,  and  the  air  waxed  cold, 

e'en  as  the  sun  had  set. 

99 


He  sought  the  room  where  her  laugh  and  song 
of  Jlatriffe  had  made  the  obscurity  bright, 

And  gazed  on  trifles   familiar  and  dear  to  the 

touch  if  not  to  the  sight, — 
Her  bird  chirped  low  in  its  shining  cage,  the 

fish  gleamed  gay  in  the  globe, 
And  careless  it  lay  on  the  rich  divan,  her  rosy 

and  silvery  robe, — 
Yes,  she  herself  would  be  here  anon — where  else 

should  she  be  ? — but  yet — 
Surely  the  hour  was  passing — had  passed — the 

hour  she  had  set 
To  return — Good  God  !  he  was  stifling,  meshed 

in  a  strangling  net  ! 


They  brought  him  a  note.     "  Dear  Kyrle,  Dear 

Love,  Briefly  and  plain  must  I  write, 
Nor  tax  God's  last  best  gift  to  you,  the  peerless 

blessing  of  sight, — 
They  who  shall  give  you  this  letter  will  tell  you 

wherefore  it  must  be 
That  you  and  I  are  severed  nor  meet  till  we 

meet  by  the  jasper  sea. 
I  had  meant  to  leave  you  another  way, — but  I 

could  not !  my  aim  would  have  missed 
The  head  that  your  hands  had  benisoned,  the 

bosom  your  lips  had  kissed, — 
100 


I  could  wish  'twere  a  loftier  motive,  dear,  some 

impulse  of  duty  or  right,  of 

But  no, — 'twas  only  that  what  you  had  loved 

thenceforth  was  inviolate  quite, 
And  so  I  have  only  gone  away.     Seek  not,  for 

you  never  will  find, — 
Spend  rather  each  precious  moment  in  doing  the 

work  we  outlined 
For  your  brush  if  our  Heavenly  Father  should 

call  you  back  into  the  field, — 
Strive  on,  and  this  present  personal  need,  this 

ache  in  your  heart,  shall  be  healed, — 
For  me, — I  shall  think  of  you  there  in  my  home, 

I  shall  know  that  you  dream  of  me  still, 
And  shall  read  in  each  finished  picture  a  starry 

sweet  thought  of 

SAVILLE!" 


101 


SO  HERE  ENDETH  THE  STORY  OF  SAVILLE 
AS  TOLD  BY  JULIA  DITTO  YOUNG  ^  AND 
DONE  INTO  A  BOOK  \f  AT  THE  ROYCROFT 
SHOP  %  WHICH  IS  IN  EAST  AURORA,  NEW 
YORK,  U.  S.  A.  $t%  MDCCCXCVII 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


Form  L9-100m-9.'52(A3105)444 


PS 

3517 


